


Trauma Spy Book One

by chezchuckles



Series: Trauma Spy [1]
Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: F/M, Trauma Spy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:06:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 287,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles
Summary: AU of an AU. In my Spy Castle series (on ffnet), I created an alternate backstory for Castle: raised by his spy father (John Black), CIA agent Castle intercepts Det. Beckett on the road during "Close Encounters." She is intrigued by his 'regimen' enhanced body, his father's science experiment to create a perfect soldier. As their relationship progresses, John Black disapproves of the emotional cracks in Castle's professionalism and tries to have Beckett killed. The stories that followed dealt often with Castle's attempts to reconcile those two worlds: super spy and man in love.In Trauma Spy, CIA agent Castle has begun to grow discontented with his father's version of the world without having ever met Beckett. But his father, John Black, has certainly met Katherine Beckett. When Dick Coonan kills Johanna Beckett, Katie is right there for the taking. Dragging her out of that alley, strung out on the regimen, Coonan sells her to John Black. Now trapped in John Black's underground facility, Kate is captive host to John Black's next generation of super soldiers.Richard Castle and his brother, Colin, finally decide to do something about their father's evil science. They raid his underground facility—and find Kate.
Relationships: Kate Beckett & Richard Castle, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: Trauma Spy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821298
Comments: 53
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As I have not edited a singled bit of this, and being over 600 pages long, this will be choppy and often incorrect in details. 
> 
> Trigger Warnings: medical rape, rape, nonconsent, experimental procedures, children of rape, graphic violence, graphic sex.

Richard Castle hustled under the cut wire fence and rolled to his belly before the poorly-lit perimeter. He was barely breathing hard, but he wanted to be sure none of the guards had caught his entrance.

The watch towers were silent.

Castle made a gesture with two fingers and his brother followed after him. He had tried to recruit them all, but Colin was the only one who’d been willing to see this through. The other two had been stubbornly resistant to the proof Castle had laid out before them - they didn’t want it to be true.

But it was.

Their so-called father, John Black, was still on the project.

It was time for it to stop; it had to stop. And Castle had just breached the walls of his father’s secret compound (fourth of five) in rural New York for just that purpose.

He was going to burn this place to the ground.

Colin slipped in beside him, having got through the wire fence. His brother gestured to the left, indicating the direction he was going, and Castle waved him forward. Colin would take care of the watchtowers and keep the building security from clueing in to the breach.

Castle would search the buildings, flush out the lab personnel, and - if his worst fears were true - take whatever - whomever - might be held inside.

Boys like himself, like he and his brothers, boys whose unlucky genetics had earned them a ticket to hell.

When Hunt had a good headstart, Castle began to creep forward.

\-----

She ached in every bone of her body.

But she thought - prayed - this time it had worked.

She could feel the blood trickling between her thighs, and her hands were smeared with it. She had to clean up, wash off her hands; spontaneous abortion would fly, but if he found out she’d done it to herself-

It would be very bad.

Kate shifted slowly towards the sink, barefoot (and pregnant, fuck, but hopefully she’d done for that), her body pulsing hotly. The blood was hot too, hot between her legs, leaking out of her. 

She couldn’t do it again. Not just the babies, but the fucking shit they injected her with for nine months and then for another year to nurse - fuck. It would kill her. She knew it with a cold and terrible certainty. And if she died (she wanted to anyway, but if she did now), she’d leave the boys with no one.

And she couldn’t do that either.

She had hated them, so fiercely, so viciously, the whole time they’d stretched her belly. Loathed them. These freaks of a science experiment, the parasites that had latched on inside her. And the fucking regimen, the shots injected into her every day, had broken her body, made it impossible to even stand, let alone do anything about the fucking demons.

And then she’d gone into labor, early, two months early, and she’d been stunned to find herself sick with worry, sobbing at him to help them, just help them; she’d do anything.

The boys had come out perfectly fine. Both small, but well-formed, as he had said, and she’d gotten to hold them and study their tiny little bodies and count their breaths and - and name them.

She didn’t understand how that fucking mad scientist could keep her locked up for three years, grooming her for his work, impregnate her with specialized sperm, and then hand her the boys, one for each breast, both of them mewling pitifully until they touched the warmth of her bare skin, and then tell her, what are you going to name them?

Fucking hell.

She’d given them names, simple, easy, non-sentimental. Labels only. But she called them something else in her head, whispered their secret names in their ears at night when she was allowed inside their room to nurse and carry them to the isolettes.

And if she died, their secret names died with her.

Fuck, there was a lot of blood. Four weeks pregnant, was there supposed to be this much blood coming out of her?

Kate used her elbow against the faucet to turn on the water, had to resist the urge to clutch at the sink to hold on. Couldn’t leave blood smeared on the porcelain or he’d know. 

She had killed three guards before Black had gotten wise and installed security. But she regularly disarmed it, had taught herself so that she’d never stop resisting. Always resist.

That had been her motto, back when she’d first gotten here. She and her mother had been taking a shortcut through Washington Heights, hurrying to meet her father for dinner, when a man in combat fatigues had stepped up behind them and shoved a knife in her mother’s ribs.

Kate had been nineteen. She’d fought, of course she had, but their attacker had been an actual Army soldier, probably black ops (she had later found that to be true), and it had been a losing battle from the beginning.

He’d kidnapped her off the street, intending to ‘save her for later’ - but his handler, the fucking bastard Black, had appropriated the spoils of war. So she’d come here, and been trained as if she would become a black ops agent herself, put on a program with severe physical trials and endurance tests, mental agility and acuity, and she had thought, bide your time, always resist.

Bide my time, always resist.

What a fucking mistake. She should have escaped when they’d been easy to fool. Even if it would have killed her, it was better than this - chained to this fucking place by two boys whose names the fucking scientist had thought so ‘amusing.’

Cain and Abel.

But she had held those babies in her arms and spoke their true names, and they were her heart, whatever was left of it, and her soul, however shredded, and anything she did had to be final, had to be the last.

There was a lot of blood.

Kate washed her hands clean and glanced to the floor, appalled at how the blood trailed across the tile. 

This was - too much blood.

She had killed them, the next set of twins; they had to be dead.

Now to get them gone.

Kate tried to turn for the call button, but the room spun without her, dizzying, vicious.

She collapsed.

\-----

Castle slipped along the outside edge of the furthest outbuilding, listening intently to the night around him. The sounds of the forest just beyond the fence were loud - the wind had picked up and the thunderstorm was ahead of schedule, the air tasting like burnt ozone. 

Over his head, a black form came between himself and the moon, its shadow ran swiftly along the ground as it flew away. An owl, he thought, or a bat, and then he heard the squeal of a rodent being caught and knew it was the owl.

Castle waited until his heart beat slow, slow, and then he crept forward and turned the corner. The door was right there on this corner, and he touched the knob. Cold. No keypad here. Storage then.  
Castle opened it and went inside.

His heart dropped. Storage all right - for exactly what Castle had been afraid of. Tubs of clothing in a range of small sizes, neatly labeled, though it looked like the toddler stuff was brand new, and the baby clothes were being used.

Fucking hell. Babies.

He’d come to the Farm when he was three, taken from his mother and a life he now had no memory of, but he did remember that first day, seeing the gates and the guards. Three years old. Raised by his father with his brothers. Only two at that time, Alex and Ben, older than him by a five years and the other only two. 

Castle still remembered the day Colin was brought to them. Here’s your new brother. Colin, a skinny baby. A toddler really, almost two.

There were babies here now.

Castle backed out of the storage building and turned his face towards the next one. Building by building until the innocents were flushed out and the guilty were dead.

\-----

She woke once, just in time to hear him say, well, let’s clean her out. And she knew the pregnancy was done, for now, it was done, the first part of her plan had worked, and she slipped back under.

\-----

He had shot five so far. Hidden bodies in closets and behind medical equipment. He had shot five people before he had come to the room inside the main building.

He hadn’t even needed to look inside to know. This is where they were being kept, the babies, past this very door. However many of them there were. The keypad was complicated, but Castle had gear in the backpack over his shoulder to deal with that. Ben had at least helped that much.

Castle didn’t open the door. He couldn’t very well carry around kids with him while he did this, let alone babies, and they’d be safest here. The whole project depended upon their survival, so there would be standing orders to keep the fighting away from them, to protect them.

Which meant they were fine until Castle could come back for them. However many there were this time. Four, probably, like himself and his brothers, but he wasn’t prepared to deal with babies.

Colin would have to help him. Castle would have to break radio silence after Colin had taken care of the security and the guards. Damn it. This was getting messy fast.

Castle left the unmarked door alone, and he crept silently through the facility, searching for the last of the fuckers who had made this place possible.

He hoped his father read the report tomorrow morning and knew it had been him.

\-----

She woke on a scream.

Black held her down.

Kate gasped through awareness and went still, her heart thundering so that her whole body shook. Her guts felt rearranged.

“We had to D&C you,” Black said. “Spontaneous abortion.”

“What a fucking excellent bedside manner,” she snarled. But, God, her heart was stone. Why had it been so easy to snake that wire up inside her body and scrape and scrape until the blood was thick?

The twins-  
“Are you crying?” he harshed.

She glared at him.

“You did this,” he said, his voice steady, cold. As always. “It’s only your own fault.”

It was my fault, she thought triumphantly. I did this. I lured you here, right here, for this very purpose.

“Next time, Katherine, you’ll have to work harder. You have been given a very special gift. The gift of life. You should be more appreciative of all I’ve done for you. Dick Coonan would have raped you blind.”

At the name of her mother’s killer, she stiffened.

“He would have made it hurt. Quite badly. But I took you away from him. I rescued you. And you have done so well.”

“I feel like shit,” she said, trying to play it up. “Can’t you just leave me alone.”

“You’ll be groggy for a while yet, I’m sure,” he said, patting her hand. He was so close. She hoped they hadn’t searched the bed. Why would they? They always did the procedures and brought her back here to sleep it off.

“You can’t do that to me again,” she said, her voice toneless. “You try it again and they’ll die too.”

“Because your scientific knowledge of the program is so vast and-”

“I don’t feel like shit because of the anesthesia, you fucking prick. I feel like shit because I feel like shit. Those shots are - are killing me.”

He smiled. Her heart went cold, ice in her veins. She fumbled at the side of the hospital-issue bed, slipping her fingers under the fitted sheet right at the metal railing.

“I won’t kill you yet, Katherine. Trust me. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know just how much you can take.”

She thumped her head back into the pillow in frustration, but it was all too real. Not for show. She could feel the edge of the scalpel blade but she couldn’t quite contort her hand to get far enough.

The velcro restraints weren’t in the same place as last time. Fucking hell.

“It’s the - nursing,” she stumbled out. Just keep the fucking conversation going. Give him enough of an argument to feel he has to prove himself. He liked nothing better than making her feel small.

“The nursing.”

“The breast milk has to be - enriched. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing to me. But enriching it for them means you’re fucking killing me. It’s too much. I feel like I did at the beginning of the trials.”

“You only died twice,” he said, lips twitching. He loved this. He loved seeing her bound and begging.

“I died twice. You need me for those fucking babies. You need me to feed them - for now at least. But if you keep pumping me full of that damn elixir, it will kill me. My - my heart isn’t right.”

Some faint hint of alarm crossed his eyes. And then he narrowed them. “We’ve seen no evidence of distress.”

“Skips beats,” she said. “Stops at night when - when I’m asleep. So I wake up - wake when it kicks back into gear.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“Put a fucking heart monitor on me.” She wasn’t entirely making it up. If she could just twist her damn arm a few inches further, she could get the scalpel she’d hidden there last trial.

“Perhaps we will keep a closer eye on your blood pressure as well. You’re - quite flushed, Katherine.”

His hand came out and touched the side of her neck; she froze for an instant, that instinctive shutdown of the prey caught out in a field.

And then her fingernail caught the edge of the scalpel and the blade sliced up into the flesh, between her nail and her finger, and it fucking seared but she had it.

She moved slowly to pull it out.

“You feel feverish. I’ll have the lab guy come in and check you out. Don’t need a blood infection on top of this. Your womb walls were quite a mess, Katherine. The doctor said we’d have to wait a good eight weeks before we have another go.”

Eight weeks. No fucking way.

She had the handle of the scalpel now and she worked it across the velcro restraint, sawing.

Eight weeks. “Can it be girls this time?” she said.

He laughed. He actually laughed. She was going to slit his throat. She was going to carve her fucking name into his face.

“Ah, Katherine, what good are girls?”

“Well, you’ve found a use for me,” she snapped back.

He smiled that cold as a snake smile, and his fingers squeezed lightly at her neck. She swallowed hard and his smile grew, and then he slowly released his hold on her.

And that’s when her restraint broke free.

Before he could catch on, Kate swung her arm around and buried the scalpel into the side of his neck. His blood spurted black and thick across the bedding, over her chest and face, and he gurgled obscenely, clutching at his throat.

She yanked the scalpel out and jabbed it in again, hacking at his neck to widen the wound, to make the blood gush out between his fingers. He screamed through the blood swelling in his throat and she lifted the scalpel again and the rage was a fist that came down, came down, the blade piercing his eyeball and pinning it to the back of his orbital socket.

Black screamed thickly and jerked, but she kept hold of the scalpel and it was a gruesome tug of war, his body arching in a rictus of pain and death and Kate desperately hanging on to the slick blade.

She had to keep the weapon. Had to. She had to-

Black crumpled and she yanked it out of him, clutched the scalpel against her chest, still half restrained in the hospital bed.

It had taken less than five minutes.

But she had done it.

Kate slowly brought the scalpel to the restraints on her other wrist, began sawing through the velcro, her mind blank. Sawing and sawing until she realized-

She placed the scalpel on the mattress beside her hip and instead reached over and yanked the velcro off, separating the strips and freeing her left hand. 

Stupid.

She had to think; she absolutely could not afford to go into shock.

She had to think. It wasn’t over yet.

There was still work to be done.

\-----

Thirty-one dead.

Castle was blood-splattered and breathing hard as he raced down the final corridor of the lab. The room at the end had a red light lit up over the door, and he knew from the Farm that meant trials were being done, no admittance.

He had found thirty-one lab workers in various states spread through the compound, most of them asleep in the dorms. But five had been here in the labs, which had surprised him. At two in the morning, what work could be going on?

He had shot the surgeon still in his scrubs, splatters of blood on his apron now joined by the blood from the hole in his chest. He had shot the two nurses beside the man as well. The other two had been guards, and he’d dispatched them first, without compunction.

No adult living in this facility was innocent.

He didn’t know why a trial had to be performed at two in the morning, but perhaps it had been some kind of emergency surgery. He couldn’t fathom for what, usually the surgeries were held off until the brothers were older, but his father was a sadistic bastard who had all kinds of ideas for his pets. Maybe he was operating on babies now.

Castle used his brother’s key encryption to open the door’s computer lock and then he put his shoulder to the metal and breached the room at a roll.

He brought his weapon up and found himself staring at a blood-drenched woman.

She was standing over a body.

She was standing over his father’s body.

\-----

Kate hesitated.

The security guard had come violently through the door but he hadn’t been expecting this scene and she’d had a moment, her moment, one moment, and she had faltered.

His eyes.

Something about his eyes.

And now her chance was lost.

But she couldn’t release the scalpel, no matter the gun pointed at her; she’d slit her wrists and kill herself rather than be - be taken in for what she’d done to the mad scientist.

The man lowered his gun.

Kate stared at him; he was staring at Black. He didn’t seem to see her anymore. So she took one slow step to the left-

“Who are you?” he rasped, eyes jerking to her. “Why are you here, why are you-”

She paused. He didn’t know? “Who are you?”

The man opened his mouth and closed it again. His face was rugged with sweat and two-day scruff, blood spackled his neck, and his hair was cut close to his scalp. Pure military.

But he was shaking.

She dared to wonder. “I - I need to get out of here,” she said. “Am I - going to have to deal with you too?”

His eyes snapped to hers. “You killed him.” It wasn’t a question, at least there was that.

She didn’t drop the scalpel. “I have to get my-” She sucked in a long breath, unable to say it, claim them. She had been so careful to keep them separate from her, to not plan on them, to - to hate them.

But she couldn’t.

“I have to get the boys,” she rasped. “I have to go.”

“The babies,” he said, and then his face changed, went completely blank. “You know about the babies?”

His body shifted towards her, his gun was still at his thigh but somehow more attentive.

She clutched the scalpel. “They’re mine. They’re mine and I’m getting them the fuck out of here. I will kill you, don’t think I won’t.”

Horror washed over his face and he stumbled back, his spine hitting the doorframe. “God, no. Oh, God, what has he done?” The man raised a shaky hand to his face and smeared a long trail of blood over his cheek as he tried to compose himself. It made his eyes starkly blue.

She shifted forward, moving slowly. She could dart in close and cut his carotid before he realized she was that fast.

He let out a hollow laugh. “Well, fuck. I came to rescue you. Looks like you didn’t need my help.”

She froze. “What.”

He gestured to the dead scientist, gave her a smile that seemed - broken. “That’s my father you gutted like a pig. I used to be one of those babies.”

Oh, God.

“So. Since you did me a favor, let me do one for you. Follow me. I know right where the babies are. They’re safe. I’ll take you there and then - you can come with me and my brother.”

Oh, God. Was this even real?

\-----

She was so brittle and yet so fierce, standing there like a fucking warrior in a hospital gown bloodied by Castle’s father’s death.

His father was dead.

He couldn’t help risking one more look, just to be sure. The man was dead. His silver hair was splattered with his own blood, his death messy and - no doubt - painful, horrifying. She had savaged his throat with that scalpel still in her hand.

He swallowed, felt his own throat move. He darted his eyes back to her; she was swaying slightly on her toes, barefoot, knees exposed by the gown. She didn’t look too good.

But she was watching him. Wary.

“I’m not like him,” he said finally. His voice was raw. “I won’t - do anything to you.”

She flinched. “He didn’t rape me.”

Castle grunted, hands shaking. “I - hadn’t thought that.” But now he was, even though she seemed too - strong. Too strong to be taken. 

“The boys are-” She shivered violently and crossed her arms over her stomach. “I don’t know. It was a procedure. I didn’t know it was happening until-”

“You don’t have to...” God, but he wanted to know. He was desperate to know. Had his own mother been - been like her? He had no idea who he truly was; he only knew what he wasn’t. “How did you get him here?”

Her face blanched.

“I just - I didn’t think he’d be here,” Castle hurried on. Maybe it was because the man was dead and messy at their feet, but everything was churning inside him. “He doesn’t stay on-site long enough for me to get - get to him. I thought I’d have to destroy his pets just to get his damn attention.”

“I’m no one’s fucking pet,” she hissed.

His chin quivered. Fuck. She was not going to make him cry. Cry? No. “I was. His pet. For my whole life. Until... maybe until right this second. He’s really dead.”

“He’s dead,” she said. Grim. She was the angel of death, and he - felt her. Felt her filling up the room. “He’s dead and he can’t touch me.” Her lips thinned. “Or you.”

“No,” he rasped. “He hasn’t been able to touch me for a long, long time.”

She clutched her elbows, but she still had the scalpel. She looked white as death herself, and he reached out to catch her - instinct or... or need? He reached out because she looked like she was going to collapse, all of the sudden right here in front of him, and she flinched at his touch but - but she let him.

She smelled like home.

The Farm? Being caged? Desperation? 

Blood? 

Whatever it was, it made his eyes close.

She sucked in a ragged breath; she was trembling. “I - no one has - touched me in...”

“Sorry,” he croaked, trying to let go. She fisted her hand in his shirt and hung on, and he felt her trying to find her balance again. “I - don’t usually - I’m sorry. I should have come sooner.”

“I should have run the first day I got here. I should have killed myself to get away. Before - before-” She shuddered and straightened her spine, though she still had a fist in his shirt. She was standing very close to him, or maybe he’d transgressed her space instead. Her eyes were the brown of the woods in winter. So cold, barren.

“I can take you. Out of here. I won’t - I’m not like him. I won’t make you do - I’ll just be your guide.”

She gave him a rueful look, glanced down to the gun holstered at his ribs. “You have a gun, and there are thirty-one residents of this compound and fifteen security agents. Agents, not inept security guards. So-”

“Thirty-one?” he said, trying not to laugh. She had surprised him. “How can you possibly know-”

“I’ve been here three years,” she growled. “And I’ve been planning this for two. I know how many are on staff, and I know their fucking names. Don’t patronize me.”

He dipped his head in acknowledgement, but his guts churned. Three years she’d been here. She was - so dominant and vital and she’d been here for three years. God. “Well, not to worry. I’ve taken care of the residents.”

She wavered, her eyes flashing to his. “Taken care of?”

“They’re dead.”

“All - all of them?”

“I didn’t touch the boys. How - how many brothers this time? I-”

“You killed every adult in the compound?” she whispered.

He set his face, jaw working. “They held you against your will. They did it to me when I was the one in here-”

“You were in here?”

“Not... not here-here. The Farm.” His gaze fell to the bloody remains of his father. “He took me when I was three. He said once that he’d ‘seeded’ a bunch of - we were his biological offspring and he would - he would-”

Her fist pressed against his sternum, still clinging to his shirt. “That’s done. It’s over. No more. I have to-”

“Right,” he said, shaking his head, looking at her. Her. Look at her. “I’ll cover your back while you get them.” 

She nodded, a short jerk of her head, and then she released his shirt.

“We can find you some - clothes, yeah?” he said softly. She was eyeing the door; she still had the scalpel. He wouldn’t try to take it from her. But clothes at least. “And I don’t even know your name.”

Her eyes tracked to his. “I don’t know yours either.”

“Castle,” he said gruffly.

“Castle?”

“I won’t use the name he gave me.”

She nodded, didn’t even look at the dead man. “Kate. Kate Beckett.”

“Kate,” he echoed. His heart clutched and started again. She filled up the whole room, his whole body, like she was at every point in space. 

She fisted the scalpel. “Let’s go - Castle.”

\-----

She had to fight the urge to lean against him, against the wall, to sit down and never get up again.

She felt bad. Sick inside. There was blood on the handle of the scalpel and it was sticky now, and on her hands, soaking through the hospital gown.

She didn’t want the boys to see her like this.

When the soldier - Castle - when Castle got to the junction, when it was go right or go left, she grabbed his arm and kept him from going right. 

“They’re this way,” he said.

“But I need clothes. This way. You said - everyone is dead?”

He gave her a grim look.

“And no one - no one will take them,” she said, reminding herself. No one would take the boys. But her. She was taking those boys.

“There’s no one left,” he said, shrugging.

“You have to be more sure than that,” she told him. “Because five people have access to that room. Five-”

“And one of them is dead. Who else?”

“A doctor. Saber-”

“He’s dead,” Castle said. His eyes were so blue with that smear of blood down his cheek. “He was my doc too. I didn’t expect him to be here, but he was - asleep in one of the dorms.”

“You shot him.”

“In the back of the head.”

“You executed him.”

His eyes were flint now. He didn’t respond.

“It’s not a judgment,” she said. “I just murdered your father. It’s not a judgment.”

He flinched, very badly, the emotion moving through his whole body.

She could understand that; it seemed more real than the flat affect he had been carrying, the dull blankness carefully crafted for his face. 

“I need clothes,” she told him. “And some - there are a couple things. This way first.”

“All right. Let me - I have to contact my brother. So he doesn’t mistake us. I never intended to go back to this wing.”

She waited in the junction, an urgent desire to run frothing in her blood. Now that she was - so close - so close. Part of her wanted to hitchhike and beg her way across the state until she got to New York City and just - back to Washington Heights where her mother was bleeding to death in an alley, the last Kate had seen of her.

But she knew her mother was long gone. Long, long gone. And her father-

Kate pressed her hand into her eyes. Castle was on a phone, or a walkie, something; she could hear very soft conversation. 

“It’s clear,” he said, and his hand came to her raised elbow, brought her hand down from her face. “We can move out.”

No one had touched her so - so kindly. For so long. God, it was embarrassing, the way her body flooded with such grateful surprise.

She swallowed hard and nodded, moving away from his touch and down the hallway. She had walked this place for years, moved to the facility once her training had started in earnest - the program’s ‘diet’ and regimen. The pills, the supplements, the fortified shit that had, at first, made her feel so damn strong.

She had thought, I can kill that bastard like this. The Army Special Forces assassin who had stabbed her mother. At first, it had been the only thing to keep her going. She had resisted at every turn, murdered three of them when she could - to prove to herself that she could do it, that she could do what was necessary when the time came to leave.

And then one day, nearly two years ago, they had put in an IV and it hadn’t been the usual elixir. She had realized too late it was knocking her out, had ripped the line from her vein, crawled out of the bed only to collapse at the locked door.

She had woken up in restraints. Feeling bruised between her legs, violated with an intensity she felt in every bone.

Violated. And no one had said a word. Breathed not a single word to her about it. She asked, oh God, she had asked. What did you do to me? But never in her - never had she thought-

And the elixir kept coming, the vitamins and shit, but the sparring sessions had been canceled and the workouts they put her through had been toned down. She had tried to push those imposed limitations herself but they’d caught her at it and restrained her at night in the room.

And then she had felt it, the way her body had been changing without her realizing. She had felt the heaviness resting in her pelvis and the stretch of her skin, and she had-

“Kate?”

She jerked to attention, horrified to find herself standing in the middle of the hall, dull and useless.

“Is this it?” he asked.

She glanced to her right. The door of her prison. “Yes,” she scraped out. “I - I can’t go in.” She was shaking; she was trembling like the boys when the needle came.

He turned into her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “You don’t have to. Tell me what to do. Tell me what you need. I’ll go in.”

She shoved herself away from him, furious, standing on her own. She was not telling his son where her hiding places were. No. 

“I can do it,” she said. And then she input the code she had memorized to her own prison.

The door opened.

\-----

Watching her walk back in there made him hurt.

It physically ached. To see her move so purposefully through the door and then inside. She went slowly - or, no, she was being methodical. He was impressed with her, how she took things and made things happen and-

He was struck by her.

She pulled the hospital gown up over her head before he knew what was happening. Castle sucked in a breath, her body, God, and then he quickly turned around and put his back to the room.

He was standing in the doorway to keep the automatic sensor from closing it on them. And he was pretty certain she didn’t want to be alone in that room and have the door close on her, even if he was right outside and ready to let her out.

She didn’t want to ever have to be let out again. He knew that feeling so fucking well.

He also knew what it was to have no privacy or sense of himself alone, crammed into a room with four others, poked and prodded by doctors all the time. Communal living. But she hadn’t grown up that way, he didn’t think; she deserved some privacy even if it was just from him.

And suddenly a heat was at his back, two hands on his shoulder blades, and he jumped.

“I’m - done.”

He turned his head, his body mired in the doorway and unable to move. She was so pale, her lips bloodless, but she was wearing black leggings and a t-shirt with a plain dark grey sweatshirt on top. She had hidden something in the pocket of the hoodie, he could see the bulge, and the scalpel was gone.

He shifted to one side and put his hand to the edge of the door to keep it from sliding closed. She went ahead of him into the hall and stood there, soft ballet slippers on her feet.

“No - no shoes?” he said, frowning.

“This is all I have,” she frowned back.

He clenched his fists and released them. He wasn’t used to someone getting to him so easily, so quickly. Usually no one got to him. But she was.

“There are storage sheds,” he muttered. “I’ll find you something when we go. You can’t walk in those.”

“This is all I have,” she said harshly. Don’t blame me.

He wasn’t. He hadn’t been. “I’ll take care of it,” he said quietly. “My brother is waiting for us at the rendezvous. We’ll go from there, but we’ll have to be very good. No alarm went out, but you never know who could be on their way.”

Her eyes darted down the hall. “I have to get the boys. I can’t - leave them.”

“No way in hell we’re leaving them.”

She nodded, a ripple going through her body, and then she turned away from him and started down the hall.

He followed behind her at first, but then he came at her side just in case. She had said thirty-one, and he believed her, but he never left anything to chance. 

And she looked - bad. Now that he was paying attention, now that he could think past the scene in that trial room, the blood and the messy - she looked bad. She didn’t even flinch when he took her elbow.

Before long, they were standing in front of that keypad door.

She let out a frustrated grunt. “I don’t - know the code. They never-”

“I can get in,” he said quickly. She was pale and too thin and her voice sounded the same. “Give me one second.”

He let go of her arm and slung the bag off his shoulders, setting it on the floor. He glanced up at her and unholstered his weapon, held it by the barrel up to her. 

She looked at him blankly.

“Do you know how to use this?” he said.

“I - point and shoot?”

“There’s a bad recoil, so two-hand it,” he said. “And yes. Point. Breathe out. Shoot. Do not point it anywhere but down. Away from your feet.”

She took it slowly.

“Cover my back,” he said, and then he dug into the bag and pretended like he hadn’t given a stranger his weapon.

He carefully pulled the contraption Ben had made from his backpack, stood up with it. He turned it on and adjusted the display screen, and then he mounted it to the wall above the keypad. 

The display controlled the computer chips inside their rickety plastic casing; it felt like it could fall apart at any moment, but that was Ben for you. Still, he knew it would work and he wouldn’t have to put a round of bullets in the door knob to get inside.

Couldn’t shoot into the babies’ room. No.

Castle took the white passkey that was attached by thin wires to the little computer, and he slowly inserted it into top card swipe. He didn’t pass it through the swipe; he had to leave it there so that the machine could do its job.

He glanced at the display and waited for it to scroll through the connection log in, and the he pressed the execute button. Ben had better have written the code correctly or-

The light flashed blue on the keypad and Kate let out a cry, rushing forward to open the door. She shoved the gun at his chest, and he cursed, grabbing it even as she went inside.

Castle holstered the weapon, quickly shoved his bag into the doorway even though the keycard should keep it open. He came after her, still straightening up, and stopped dead.

The room was dark, and bare, windowless. There were two utilitarian isolettes, and standing up in one of them were two boys, young, so young, babies in white onesies.

Kate leaned over and put her arms around their necks, holding on to them.

\-----

She cupped their faces and kissed those little cheeks. “How did you get in here?” she murmured, her words choking in her throat. “Did you climb out?”

And then into his brother’s isolette? They were low to the ground but, God, they were only fourteen months old. It didn’t seem possible. 

Their hands were on her, clutching and tugging, silent. They had both been so - so quiet, always. They made those little mewling noises in her ear, wanting her, but they had no words. They should have-

Not her fault. Not her fault. She had only been able to do what - small things. Barely any time with them. And she hadn’t talked to them either, hadn’t been able to make herself interact like that with all the medical team watching.

The older boy - by four minutes - the older gripped the side of the isolette and stared past her, but the younger, he tried to climb up, clutching her shirt. She leaned in and wrapped her arms around him, breathing his name softly into his ear, and then she tried to lift him out.

Kate groaned.

Her knees hit the side of the isolette and both boys cried out.

“Kate?” He gripped her by the arms, Castle. Castle. “What’s wrong?”

She pressed her head into the crook of her arm, gulping down pain.

Castle cupped the back of the younger one’s head, smoothing down his wrinkled brow with a thumb. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t be sad.”

She swallowed hard and used the edge of the isolette to push herself upright. But. But it hurt. God.

“Kate? What’s wrong? Tell me what-”

“I can’t - lift them,” she breathed. Her chest was tight. “Can’t even - carry them.”

“I can carry them,” he said quickly. “I’ll carry - Kate? They...” He shook his head. “What are their names?”

She didn’t even think; she just - told him. Like she hadn’t kept that secret for fourteen months. “James,” she said, touching the older boy. He was strong; he had climbed in with his brother, and he stood against the side now, watching them both. “And - Wyatt.”

His face blanked. She curled her fingers at the back of Wyatt’s neck, his brother’s shadow, and she couldn’t believe she’d blurted it out like that.

Castle put out a hand to James, something strange in his eyes. “I - James?”

Wyatt mewled at her, butting his head against her side. She couldn’t - she couldn’t pick him up. It had ripped something inside her. She hadn’t thought of that - she hadn’t thought past killing Black.

“I had a dream about him.”

“What?” she croaked, jerking her eyes to him. It was so dark in here. 

“James. I had - a dream about him. He came in a window and-” Castle shook his head hard, closed his eyes. “They - they’re okay now.”

“What?” she whispered.

He opened his eyes and leaned in over the isolette to pick up the boy, and James clutched at his shirt, his body squirming against Castle’s chest. 

Castle shifted him to one arm and gave her a look. “Call his name, Kate, so he knows - knows I’m okay.”

“What are you - saying?”

Castle gave her a desolate look. “I can - they’re in my head. I can - I think they’re mine.”

“They’re not yours,” she rasped, jerking towards James in his arms. But she couldn’t - even trying to take the boy’s weight, she couldn’t. 

“Sor-sorry. I meant - I meant they’re - oh, God. He took my fucking-” Castle gripped James and she stared at him, her heart squeezed too tightly.

His eyes.

They had his eyes. 

Oh, God.

\-----

He clutched James against him, but she just stood there, staring at them.

She must know it was true. 

The boy still standing in the isolette gave a little cry, left out, and Kate turned to him as if blindly, once more bending over. She moved to stand and grunted, her face going pale.

“Stop,” he said, grabbing her arm and holding her up. “Kate. What’s wrong with you? What - there was a surgeon.”

She stared down at the boy left in the isolette, and Castle moved in and wrapped an arm around him, lifted him over the side.

“Wyatt,” she murmured, touching his arm. The boy looked back at her, but Castle felt him shifting, felt the way his - presence - the sensation of him settling. Just as James had done. Wyatt. 

They were in his head like Colin was in his head. 

He had both boys, one in each arm, and he watched her swaying on her feet, not speaking.

“Something’s wrong,” he told her quietly. “And I need to know how far you can walk, that you can keep up.”

She roused, her eyes coming to him. For a moment, he saw exactly what she was thinking, exactly how bleak it had gotten inside her head. I could just sit down and die.

“No,” he croaked. “No. You can’t. You’re their mother.”

“No, I’m-” Her face twisted, her eyes closed. “Not anything.”

“Kate,” he called. “Kate.” He shifted the smaller boy to the other arm, gripping them hard to keep from dropping them, and he reached out with his now free hand and dragged her in against him. “Stop. Come this far. Just tell me. Tell me. Colin and I - we can take the boys and you out of here. Kate. Just tell me-”

“I had a D&C,” she croaked. Her face was buried in his chest. 

“Okay,” he whispered. Some kind of - surgery? “I don’t know what that is. But did you - are there stitches, does it hurt-?”

“I aborted them.”

He stiffened. “In-inside? That’s - that’s a procedure to - Kate, are you okay? Should you be standing up?” He gripped her shoulders and glanced to the boys, so quiet, so eerily quiet. Had he and his brothers been like this?

“I couldn’t do it again,” she husked. “I couldn’t - so I killed them. Four-four weeks.”

“You didn’t kill anything,” he growled. “You saved your own life. Some fucking cells that he put in you - that’s not-”

“Yours.”

He sucked in a harsh breath. “Then I’m saying you’re fine. I’m saying you didn’t do anything wrong. But, God, tell me you’re okay. Tell me you’re not going to - to die from this.”

“I don’t know what - I think I pulled something.”

Alex. He had to get her to Alex. “My brother’s a doc. I’ll take you to him. He can be sure-”

“No, I’m - fine. I don’t-”

“He’s not like - well, he... he could be. I don’t - really know. But he’s my brother, and that comes first. He won’t - he won’t do anything. He’ll - what if you’ve torn - are there stitches inside?”

“I don’t know.”

She was so damn young. How could she know? She had two boys, he had two boys-

“First,” he said tightly. “First we get you out of here. All of you. I’ll call Colin to meet us here. We’ll carry you between us-”

“You don’t need to carry me,” she muttered, lifting her head from his shoulder. Her eyes tracked to the boys. “Just them and I’ll - I can keep up.”

He was sure she could but he wasn’t sure she’d survive it. And while he was strong, he was very strong, it was awkward carrying both boys in his right arm, as small as they were. “I’m calling Colin. Sit down, Kate, until he gets here.”

She studied him a moment, and he knew she was deciding if she trusted him or not. Trusted him not to take the boys from her and just go. And maybe part of her wanted him to, wanted to quit, but she would never even if she felt like it.

“He took me,” Castle said softly. “He took me from my mother. I don’t even know if she’s alive any more. I’ve never found her. I wouldn’t do that to - to them. Even if my DNA is in them, I couldn’t take a boy from his mother.”

She swallowed and leaned her forehead against the little one. Wyatt. The baby patted the top of her head with his little hand, and he gave Castle a beaming smile, as if proud of how he was taking care of her.

“Good boy,” he murmured to the baby. He glanced to the woman hanging on to the kids. “Kate. Sit outside in the hall, wait with me.”

She lifted her head. “Okay.”

She moved away from him, and he shifted Wyatt to the other arm, followed her out into the hall again. She leaned her back against the wall and then slowly sank down, closing her eyes.

Castle sat down beside her and loosened his arms. Immediately, the two boys leaned out and crawled into her lap, clutching her sweatshirt, squirming. She ducked her head and murmured softly over them, saying things he couldn’t hear.

Castle reached for his bag and pulled out the phone, called his brother.

\-----


	2. Chapter 2

She felt better sitting down, even if their little knees dug into her stomach. It hurt, it did, she wouldn’t be so stupid as to deny that. Not when they had to get out of here. But she could do it so long as she wasn’t trying to overdo it.

James, the more confident boy, kept looking at Castle. Eyeing him, studying him. Kate nudged her nose into the back of his head, unspoken okay, and James leaned out and crawled into Castle’s lap.

He looked astonished, staring down at the boy. “James,” he murmured.

Kate let out a breath and hooked her arms around Wyatt, cradling him the way she did at night. He always needed more from her at bedtime, while James fell right to sleep the moment she cuddled him. Wyatt wanted to be held like a newborn and sung to, and even though she had resisted at first, she had resisted so much, she had whispered songs in his ear until he drifted off.

They would never remember this. Never remember the bare room and the bright lights and the needles. They wouldn’t remember her, either, if she-

“Stop it.”

She jerked her head up and saw him watching her. Studying her the same way James did. Like he could read her mind.

Maybe he could.

“Just tired,” she said, promising something she hadn’t realized she’d be promising.

He reached out and touched Wyatt. The top of the boy’s head. His hand was so wide it dwarfed him. Kate leaned back and let her head rest against the wall.

It was strange to have someone else in this. On her side.

“I’m their father,” he said roughly.

She opened her eyes, turning her head to look at him. He couldn’t be more than twenty-eight, young himself, and obviously he hadn’t quite come to terms with the death of his - father. Black. 

You’re nothing to them, she wanted to say. To defend. But it wouldn’t be fair. And it wouldn’t be right, and even though none of this was right, even though she had tried to hate them, she couldn’t.

“He said - once - I heard him when he thought - he picked up James and said, now this is my true grandson.”

“God.”

“He thought Wyatt...” She glanced down at the smaller one in her arms. They weren’t identical. They’d just been the two embryos that had stuck. “Was too much me.”

Castle groaned, cupping the boy’s head. “I - I’m so sorry.”

She knocked his hand away, protecting Wyatt. “Don’t. Don’t be sorry. They’re not - pathetic. They’re-”

“For you,” he said. “For what my fucking father did to you.”

“Don’t,” she said. “I killed him. It’s over.”

Castle withdrew his hand and instead circled his arms around James, something deeply disturbing to her about the way he held the boy. Like a claim. Like he wouldn’t give him up.

What had she done?

She couldn’t have done anything else; this was the only option. And if it meant - well, fine. Let him take the boys. Let him do something with them and she could - she could just - go home.

She just wanted to go home.

Kate glanced down at Wyatt, how tired he was. Poor baby. Middle of the night and they’d both been awake. Maybe they’d heard Castle out here, maybe they had known what she’d done. 

Killed their brothers.

Oh. She suddenly remembered. 

Kate shifted Wyatt and shoved her hand into the pocket of her hoodie, pulled out the little pathetic thing she’d made. One for each of them, stupid little doll made from strips of one of her old sweatshirt. Wyatt beamed at her and grabbed for it, stuck it in his mouth, little goofy boy.

She felt her smile slip over her face, as he could always pull out of her, and she flicked a finger over his ear. Wyatt gave a little giggle in response, tugged the rag doll out of his mouth and waved it in her face.

“I know,” she murmured, putting his hand down. “It’s yours. Keep it now.”

She turned her head and found Castle and James both watching her. She ignored the man and handed over the second rag doll to its owner; James curled his fingers around it and gave her that shy smile, ducking in against Castle, bringing the toy to his chest.

“Won’t take it back from you,” she said softly. She lifted her eyes to Castle. “I guess he’s more like you. That’s - what seemed to please - please him.”

“Black.”

She nodded. “I thought he - he’s very unlike me. Except he’s - a little problem solver. He climbed out of his isolette in there.” Why was she telling him this? Why was she giving him anything at all.

“Kate?”

She sighed and glanced to him. Castle jerked his eyes away from the baby and looked at her. His face was apologetic. “We’ll have to get their medical records before we leave.”

Kate sat back, mouth dropping open. “What?”

“The - uh - you said he - well, Kate, there’s this kind of program...”

“I know about the program,” she grumbled. “I’m the one they were sticking needles in until-” She chewed the inside of her cheek and glanced down to Wyatt. He hadn’t quite responded to the shots like James had; he was falling behind.

“You’re on the program.”

“Had to - why I had to get rid... rid of them.”

“Them?”

She frowned, scowling down at Wyatt so that he tried to cheer her up, his fingers playing with his lips and grinning. She huffed at him, but it worked. Sort of.

“The pregnancy,” she said firmly. “I can’t do it again. I had - trouble enough with these.”

“Shit. We’ll get your medical records too. We’ll have to take the computer discs, maybe even pry out the hard drives, to be sure. I don’t want anyone coming out here and trying to revitalize the program. I want it done.”

“Done,” she echoed. Her medical records. The boys. For so long she had - put them away from her. As little brothers not - not her own sons.

Oh, God.

“I’m going to fucking burn it to the ground. So if you want something of this, then you need tell me so that I can take it.”

“What I want is right here,” she growled.

He touched two fingers to the top of James’s head. “I’ll make sure you have them. They won’t - no one will take them.”

She let out a hard breath, realized she was clutching Wyatt. “I - the medical records. They’ll be under Cain - Cain and Abel.”

Castle blinked and glanced between the boys. “What?”

“Their names are - secrets. My secrets. Their real names, not the ones I gave Black. Those are just-”

“Covers,” he said gravely. “Cover identities. While their real life is with you.”

With her? She hadn’t thought of it like that, just - just the secret life. The way she’d had her own secret life, the plans in her head that no one could know.

“I wanted them to know,” she said quietly, trying to find the right words. It seemed important that this man know as well. They had been taken from him too. “Only that they should have something of their own, that no one else could have. Like when you said you wouldn’t be called by his name for you.”

“Richard,” he said.

She stared at him. “That’s your - Richard?”

“Rick!”

They both startled, turning their heads to look down the hall. A man was there, hurrying towards them, in similar black-garbed fatigues. When Castle didn’t so much as flinch, she figured he must be the brother.

“He doesn’t look like you,” she said, eyeing the man critically. 

“Different mothers,” he gruffed. “We think.”

Kate turned her head back to him, astonished by - by the connections he had. These people who were willing to fight with him against Black, their own father. “The others? You said Alex.”

“Alex is a doctor - I think in the program. He won’t tell us. He wouldn’t come, but he’s not that kind of soldier anyway. And then Ben - he does the computer stuff. Hey, Colin.” Castle gave the man a glare as he approached. “Don’t fucking look at me like that. She’s theirs.”

“Theirs,” the man said, glancing at her in dismay. “Shit. He’s using girls now?”

A girl? She bristled, pushing back against the wall, but she found she couldn’t get herself upright. Fuck. Wyatt squirmed in her arms and pulled himself up, standing on her thighs as he glared at Colin.

“Who knows how long,” Castle said grimly. He stood up easily, even with James, right to his feet with the boy clinging to his shirt. “Here. Take this one. I don’t think the other will go to you.”

James whined and leaned back for her, but Kate shook her head. They were used to this; they knew better. But James didn’t seem to care. With her right there in his sight, he didn’t want to be handed off.

“James,” she said. It was so strange to say his name out loud. And it must have been strange for him too because he stopped fighting the switch, stayed with Colin.

Castle leaned over her, and she flinched back, surprised by the nearness, the looming, all of it.

“Sorry,” he whispered softly. “Tell Wyatt it’s okay.”

“It’s okay,” she said automatically. And then she released Wyatt, pushing him towards Castle. Wyatt didn’t protest, but he growled as he rose away from her. She sighed, not used to this, too used to this, letting them go. But not as - not as their real names. She always said good-bye to them using their program names, and that kept them quiet, made them so docile.

They knew, somehow, that it was safe now.

“Kate, take my hand.”

She wasn’t sure she could, honestly. But she had to. If they took the boys away from her-

“Okay,” Castle said suddenly. And then he was crouched before her and wrapping his arm under hers and around her shoulders, pulling her upright with him. She let out a rush of air, startled by his nearness, the heat of his skin through his shirt and the strength of him.

He was very strong. No one had ever been this close to her, pressed up against her body like this. God, she was shaking.

“I’ll wait till you get your feet under you,” he husked near her ear. 

Her heart was thundering.

“Can you - stand, love?” he murmured. “Or do I need to carry you?”

She stiffened, drawing away from him, but she happened to see the flickering grin on his face. “You’re a fucking asshole,” she muttered.

He grinned a little wider. God, he was just like Wyatt. Wyatt, always hamming it up, being sly and annoying and - and funny. Her comic relief. She had thought Wyatt was like her, like she’d been before, a little silly - she’d always been the one to get a laugh out of her mom when no one else could.

But the faces Wyatt pulled, she was seeing one of them right now.

She swallowed and stepped back, her arms empty, wearing the only things she had of any value, and even that wasn’t much. A sweatshirt that she’d had to fucking claw their eyes out to get, flats that offered no protection at all.

“The guards are all down,” Colin said. “But I don’t know how long the quiet will last. So-”

“All right. Medical records are...”

“Down there,” she said, nodding back the way they’d come. “Close to - to where you found me.”

“Good,” Castle said. “That way Colin can see him too. His body.”

Colin flashed her a terrible look, dark and seething. “You killed him?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I did.”

He studied her a long moment. “Guess you deserve that honor,” he muttered. “But don’t think, Richard, that I won’t take my shots in when we go by.”

“Not with the kid in your arms.”

“Leave the kid with you to rifle through fucking medical records. Then I’ll take a fucking piece out of him.”

Kate felt sick.

But she could do this. If she had to lead this twisted man back to his father so he could get some kind of damn trophy, then fine. She’d do that, and then they’d get out of here, and then-

She had no idea. But they wouldn’t be here.

\-----

Castle kept an eye on her as they walked, moving not as quickly as he wanted but as fast as he thought she could stand. Once they got back under the fence after they were done here, he’d make her lie down in the back. Shit, they didn’t have carseats or anything. He’d have Colin drive then, and Castle would hold the boys in his lap back there with her.

He had - these were his own flesh and blood. He still couldn’t quite fathom it. But it was impossible to deny, not when they were in his head like this. 

He turned to Colin as they rounded the corner. He had James in both arms, not too natural at holding the kid, but Castle remembered being seven and carrying Colin around their sleep room, talking to him because his older brothers wouldn’t.

Castle had been the talker. He and Colin were close; they thought the same about the program.

“You - sense them?” he said, nodding to the boys.

Colin shook his head. “Not like you and me.”

“But?”

“But they’re there,” he said with a little shrug. “And so is she, you know.”

“She is?” He glanced back, Wyatt gripping his shirt with the sudden movement. Kate was struggling; she was doing it, but she looked bad. He wanted to reach back and hurry her up, but he thought that wouldn’t go over that well.

“She is,” Colin said. “You can’t feel-”

“No, I - yeah,” he sighed. He’d been - ignoring it? No, he’d been so floored by opening the door to find her standing over Black, that she had slipped right inside his defenses. She was so close in his head, more than Colin even, like when he had hugged her and she had pressed against him, but this was the pressure of her presence against his own.

Something. They’d never been able to explain it; it just was. And they hadn’t told Black. This whole time, they had kept it to themselves.

“I feel them like you and me,” Castle told Colin, sighing. “The boys.”

“Well, they’re yours,” Colin said with a shrug. 

Castle did a double take. Colin gave him a rueful glance; apparently he hadn’t known he’d known that either.

That happened to Colin sometimes. Castle didn’t have it like that, but Colin did.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Sorry, brother. They’re your strand of special.”

Castle nodded. “I knew that.” He juggled Wyatt and shifted the boy to his other arm, turned then and reached out for Kate. He got a grip on her bicep and kept her upright long enough for her to match their stride.

She tried to shrug him off and after a moment, he let her. He remembered the record room, the computer control center, but she obviously had a better sense of direction than he did - and she’d been here for three years.

Three years. Fucking hell. And two boys, and another pregnancy she’d - terminated. He didn’t know what she was going to do next - what could she do? She was young, and she’d missed out on three years of her life, and there was no going back.

He had a place in the city, but it was hardly... no. No excuses. No more shirking. He’d take her there; no one in his father’s program knew about that place. He’d been very careful, and he would be even more so and they’d figure it out.

“Here,” she said suddenly. “This one. They took the - there were these kind of laptop things they had. Clunky. They would scan the boys with this machine on a cart and take it back here.”

Castle glanced to Colin. “Here, take this one. Kate and I will look through everything.”

“No!” Kate gasped.

He glanced to her. She closed her eyes and ran a shaky hand over her face. He kept Wyatt with him, shifted so that he put his back to Colin, hiding her from his brother. “Kate?”

“I - don’t know why I said that.” She lowered her hand and made a fist, pressed it against her chest. “But - they stay with me. They-”

“Colin will be inside with us,” he promised, turning to give his brother a look. Colin rolled his eyes and Castle punched his shoulder. “Colin will be inside.”

“Okay, ouch, fine,” Colin muttered. “Tell your girlfriend to stop looking at me like that. I don’t eat babies. Too soft.”

Kate actually grunted something like a laugh, and Castle was suddenly grateful for his brother’s twisted fucked-up humor. He nodded to Kate and handed Wyatt to Colin, even though the boy mewled and cast sad little eyes to his - his mother.

Kate lifted her hand and touched Wyatt’s cheek, and the boy sighed as if resigned to it. Castle quickly dug the electric passkey from his bag and set it up again, unlocking the door in moments. Kate pushed past him and opened it, went on inside ahead of him.

He glanced to Colin and his brother rolled his eyes but went inside with both boys in his arms. Castle followed, leaving his bag in the doorway again in case the passkey failed. Ben wasn’t an idiot, but he did things piecemeal and you never knew.

It was a wide room filled with file cabinets and medical equipment, a couple of desks, a fat beige computer against one wall. 

Kate stood before a metal cart with some kind of blood-gas machine on top of it. He had seen that kind before, when his father’s medical team had taken his readings every week, but no more.

He’d been done with that for a few years now. 

Three years. 

Castle froze.

He’d told off his father three years ago - did that have something to do with this? God, he felt sick.

“In here,” she said. “These are the computers, I think.” She pulled out a flat kind of briefcase that he’d seen before. A laptop. Thick. “They’re not what I - I mean, I had a computer my first semester... I don’t know where all of that - I was on Christmas break.”

And she never got back to college. One semester. He didn’t know what to say to that so he pointed to the file cabinets. “If you can look through there, every piece of paper, Kate. I’ll go through the laptops and then the big central computer.”

She glanced behind them to where Colin had settled on top of a desk, the two boys standing up on the wood. 

“Col,” he muttered. “At least fucking hold on to them.”

“I won’t let them fall. They’re like monkeys, both of em. See? This big one here could-”

“James,” Castle said, interrupting. “His name is James.”

Colin waggled an eyebrow at him but Castle ignored it and turned back for the computer. He wanted to get them all out of here.

\-----

Her mouth was dry, her head pounding. There was - a lot here. Reams of paper on the boys. A whole entire drawer on her three years spent prisoner inside this fucking facility.

Castle looked stunned. And he kept stopping to read, and she didn’t want - it seemed impossible that he should know all this stuff about her, things she didn’t even know. But then she found his file.

“Castle. This is yours.”

“What?” he croaked, turning to her. He came up behind her at the file cabinet and reached past her for the manila folder. His body was hot - literally heated to a degree she could feel through her sweatshirt - and she had to fight the urge to lean back against him and just - let go.

She was so damn tired. She’d lost a lot of blood and even though she was pretty sure they’d put it back in her, there’d been the D&C to clean her out, and whatever else her insides had needed. Stitches seemed likely. She had no idea; she had no fucking clue what happened when you jabbed a wire up inside of yourself and scraped until you hemorrhaged.

He took the file and stepped back, reading voraciously, and Kate gave up on the file cabinet and sank to the top of one of the desks. She watched the boys listlessly, the way they chewed on their ragdolls and sat on the desk beside Colin. James looked back at her, reached out for her.

She shook her head. She couldn’t. She - just couldn’t. 

She wasn’t sure she could do this anymore. 

“Okay,” Castle growled. “Fuck. Okay. This is - more than I expected. But I got everything off the laptops; they can burn. I’ll take the hard drive from the central computer and put it in my bag - it looks like it had everything that was on paper here.”

“I’ve got the fire-starters in my bag,” Colin said. 

Castle nodded, but he turned to her. “You want to do the honors?”

“What?” she said, startling to attention.

“All these records on you, on the boys. You want to set them on fire or want me to do it?”

Her heart jumped. “I want to do it,” she said, standing sharply. Her pulse was strange, skipping beats, but she didn’t have time for that.

She wanted to fucking burn it down.

This life, this life that had been forced on her, forced into her, and she had control now. It was hers, and she was going to fucking burn it to the ground. And start over. No more program. No more dying. 

She glanced to the boys. “Do they... will they need this stuff in the future? You said you had - you’re in the program. Are they? Does it wear off?”

Castle glanced to his brother, neither of them answering.

“It doesn’t wear off,” she said hollowly.

“Nope. Stuck for life,” Colin chirped, a jeering kind of smile on his face.

She wasn’t sure she liked him. Castle was slamming shut the file cabinet and turning back to her. He looked grim. “It’s not a diet and exercise, Kate. It’s a condition.”

“A - medical condition?”

“And it’s unstable,” he went on slowly. He wouldn’t look at her. “It’s unstable until you get enough - enough of the drugs, it’s a specific kind of cocktail. He called it the-”

“Elixir,” she muttered, rubbing her palms against the tops of her thighs. She glanced at the boys. A condition.

“Yes. Over time, it allows the condition to be stabilized, or it forces the human body to - I can’t even explain it right now. It’s complicated. It requires some understanding of the cell’s mitochondria and lipoproteins-”

“So fucking explain it,” she hissed.

“I will,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. His eyes were like flint, unmoving, cold. “I will explain it, every last detail. We’ll get you and the boys both to see Alex, and we’ll work on finding the right combination for them. For you - I don’t... I don’t know, Kate. You didn’t grow up on this; he created you.”

“He did not fucking create-”

“No, sorry, no. Not - he didn’t,” Castle choked out. His cheeks had flushed, his eyes were no longer so removed. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I meant. He created a temporary condition in your blood, pumping you full of the chemicals and proteins he needed to make - make you a viable candidate for - for transplantation.”

“And?”

“And I don’t know how much it - it changed you? I don’t know yet how much damage it did to your blood cells, your bone marrow, your muscles. Your... heart.”

Her heart. Oh, God.

“It’s been - skipping,” she muttered, glancing away from him. 

“Fuck,” he whispered. His hands tightened on her shoulders and he drew her into him. She took a shaky breath even as he wrapped his arms around her.

She found herself clutching the belt loops of his pants to hang on to him.

“Okay,” he croaked. “Okay, we’ll figure it out. Everything is on the discs, and I’m taking the hard drive. We gotta table this for now, Kate, even though I know you want answers. For now. Let’s just - get out of here.”

“Yes,” she groaned. “I want out of here.”

He nodded against the top of her head and she let out a breath and shoved him away. He stumbled, looking surprised, a little hurt, but she - she didn’t know what to do with him.

“Let me burn it,” she said gruffly. “Give me - a match.”

Colin laughed. “Oh, darling. We got something much better than a little old match.”

\-----

Castle watched her face in the light of the fire. She still had the blowtorch flamethrower thing that Colin himself had invented specifically for this excursion, but the conflagration was already pretty high.

And fast moving, even through the metal of the file cabinets. Since only one drawer could be pulled out a time, they’d piled the manila folders all in the center of the floor and Kate had done the job.

Castle reached out and took her hand, pulled her towards the door where they’d left the boys out in the hall. Colin was still by the fire, rapt as he usually was by flames, but Castle let him stay. He needed a moment. He always did.

This was the third facility of their father’s they’d torched, but the first time it had actually - meant something. Done any good at all. Castle had discovered there were brothers in a lab somewhere only at the last place they’d been, and it had seemed obvious once they got here that it was going on again.

“Don’t let them come in,” she said.

He turned and blocked the doorway as he opened it. Both boys were outside, right there at the door, faces upturned, pitiful looks. He sighed and bent down, scooped them both up into his arms.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he murmured. They didn’t seem to believe him, but he figured that was because they could hear the flames through the open door. He turned. “Colin. You fucking idiot. Now.”

Colin shuddered as if being yanked from a dream - a nightmare - and he turned around and put his back to the flames. He came out of the room finally and looked at Kate, taking the blowtorch from her and putting it in his bag.

“Where’s the bastard’s body?”

“Two doors down,” Kate answered. She’d been casting glances that way over and over, but now she turned to Castle. “I want to go with him.”

“What?” he croaked.

“Can you wait for me with - with the boys?”

“You want to go with him?”

“I need to - see it again. Make sure.”

Colin grunted. “Okay, but you get a look and then you leave me alone with him. You won’t like it.”

Her cheeks were pale again, but she didn’t flinch. “All right.”

Castle didn’t want to look at Black ever again, and he had a feeling that mangled throat and the gaping eye socket were going to haunt his dreams for a while yet. But he just shrugged his shoulders under the load of his bag and hefted the boys a little higher in his arms.

“Fine. Let’s go. We don’t need to stand around this close to the fire, especially when those charges go off.”

Kate let out a breath and led the way, Colin following immediately on her heel. Castle could see the way her shoulders hunched and she kept shooting his brother nervous looks; she didn’t like Colin so close.

She didn’t do that to him. She’d leaned against him once or twice even.

James and Wyatt were heavier than they’d been, and when he glanced down, both boys had laid their heads on his shoulders, dipping towards sleep. It made his chest tight, the way they seemed to - to trust him. If only because Kate did.

Kate opened the door to the trial room - it was a standard recovery room used for subjects after a trial. Usually of straight medication, but sometimes there had been other trials. Castle had never needed any of the physical augmentations, but he knew Alex had, repeatedly.

Maybe that was why Alex had chosen medicine. Well, actually, Castle couldn’t be sure it had ever been Alex’s choice. Had any of them been given a choice? They did what their father had determined they excelled at.

God damn it. The fucking bastard was dead. Could he not bury him in his own head?

Colin snarled the moment he saw the body. He turned quickly to Kate and grabbed her hand and suddenly pressed it against his chest, his heart. Castle jerked forward, even though he had the kids in his arms, but Kate shot him a glare.

Colin beat at his chest with one fist, still holding Kate’s hand against his heart. “My life.” He was breathing hard. He looked at Castle. “You’ll tell me. If I can. Anything.”

Castle let out a slow breath. “Yes. I’ll tell you.”

“Tell him what?” Kate choked out.

“Nothing,” Castle said. Just a promise to tell Colin if Kate ever ever needed his services in repayment for setting Colin free. “Now leave him. He’s going to do something - vile.”

Kate glanced back at the dead man, but Castle didn’t look. He wouldn’t give Black the satisfaction of needing to look again. He didn’t fucking care. The man was dead; he’d stay that way.

“Kate,” he insisted, backing up himself so that the boys wouldn’t see. But they were still drowsy on his chest, eyes closed or closing.

She finally came as well, sliding out of the room with him and leaning against the wall.

And then they waited for Colin to put his own soul to rights.

\-----

With the fire eating through the main building, Castle forced them to stop at one of the storage sheds, an outbuilding she'd never even been to. They'd allowed her outside, of course, for a kind of constitution, a stroll around a fenced yard, but never this far.

She wasn't going to fear it. No. That was insane.

Castle slammed his shoulder into the door and popped it off the lock, the doorframe snapping like twigs. She had Wyatt clinging to her knees, she was half-bent to touch the top of his head and keep him still, but Colin had James in his arms, waiting.

"Tell me what we need, Kate," Castle called from inside.

Her throat closed up. "I - I don't know."

He glanced back at her from the dark interior. "You don't-?" He snapped his mouth shut and she stroked her fingers through Wyatt's dark hair, but it didn't do any good. She didn't know.

She had no idea how to care for these boys day in and day out. She had never been allowed.

"Diapers?" he asked. "I see-"

"Yeah. And - a couple changes of clothes. And... maybe there's some kind of food? They're on a special diet but..."

But she didn't know.

"I'll just fill up a bag," he said, disappearing inside once more.

She could hear the flames chewing through the building, but Colin and Castle seemed supremely unconcerned by the fire. She really felt like she needed to sit down, but if she did, she wasn't sure she could get back up. And she didn't want these two soldiers carrying her out like some kind of victim.

She had killed Black. She wasn't a victim.

Wyatt stood on her toes and mewled up at her, but she just stroked the side of his face and ignored the plea to be up. She couldn't do it. She just couldn't. And she was beginning to figure out that recovery this time was going to take a while - you didn't just bounce back from a terminated pregnancy, and the program on top of things - and she 'just couldn't' for a lot of things, and for a long time to come.

What would she have done with them? Called - called her father and he'd have... he'd have been wrecked. God. He was going to be as stoic as he could to her face - he had always been like that - but it was going to tear him up, knowing what she'd been through this whole time. 

But he'd take care of the boys. He would. She didn't doubt that. And she'd be in a hospital somewhere-

Kate shuddered. She wasn't sure she could do that. Be restrained and flat out again for-

She would call her dad. Soon as - soon as she could sit down. Castle had a phone; she had seen him call Colin to come meet them. It would be okay; she'd call her dad. It was going to be fine.

"I got as much as I could fit," Castle said suddenly from in front of her. She stared at him, the bag slung over his shoulder. Colin had emptied his own pack and set charges around the facility, flammable shit she didn't know the names of, and replaced it with the computer hard drive and the floppies. Castle had his own pack and now stuffed inside it were - baby things.

This was seriously unreal.

His sons. They were his sons.

He touched her hand where she was bent over Wyatt, and she released the boy. Castle lifted him and Wyatt burrowed into his chest, instantly appeased by - by this stranger. But he'd been handled by strangers his whole life. Every stranger was a potential care giver, so he might as well snuggle.

God, the look on Castle's face. She knew that feeling. This is mine? That awe.

She looked away, glancing at where Colin was getting antsy a few feet from them. James didn't look as settled as Wyatt, but James never did seem to like other people. He didn't reach for her - he had stopped doing that months ago if other people were in the room. He'd done it in the records room tonight, and she'd said no, and now he wouldn't. He wouldn't. She could feel that in him, his stubborn refusal to ask where he wasn't wanted.

She wanted to hold him. She was going to hold him through the whole damn drive away from here. To - to wherever they were going. Alex? A doctor. She was fucking holding her son. Her son.

"Let's roll," Colin said, turning away from the storage shed. Castle was at her side as if he thought he might need to catch her, hold her up, and she could admit she must look bad. But no fucking way was she failing now, not when she was so close to getting out of here.

It was a short walk to the fence line, a row of chain link topped by barbed wire. She glanced up, dreading that climb, but Colin was bending over and putting James on his feet, scrambling himself towards the bottom of the fence.

James came running to her, as if suddenly free. She caught him with a hand, clutching the back of his onesie, realizing stupidly that it was chilly out here, they were in pajamas and bare feet, holy fuck, she was the worst at this.

She crouched down, ignoring the way her body swayed, and she wrapped both arms around James, pressing him against her. He clung tightly, and she didn't have the words to reassure him because she didn't know. She was really bad at this; they had never let her stay with them, so she didn't know - she didn't know what it was to think about their needs or what they didn't have.

A hand touched the top of her head. "Kate?" He sounded urgent even in his kindness. "We're going to have to crawl under the fence. There's a gap. Can you-?"

"Yeah," she croaked. Of course. She could do anything if it meant getting the fuck out of here.

"Here, give me James. We'll pass the boys through after you."

She couldn't help nudging her cheek to the boy's, a moment of reassurance for them both, and then she backed off, releasing him. Castle took the boy's hand, Wyatt still in his arms, and he nodded towards the fence.

Kate glanced at the feet remaining, the flap of bent-back chainlink that Colin held up on the other side. He looked antsy and restless, ill at ease in his own skin. She figured he wanted out of here, wanted to be alone with whatever demons he'd been trying to exorcise. 

She crawled forward on her hands and knees, the remaining distance not worth the energy it would take to stand up, walk forward, only to squat down again. When she got to the hole, she was surprised at how gently Colin reached for her, taking her weight by the shoulders and helping her through.

She felt the dew from the grass soak into the knees of her leggings, stain her palms. When she was clear of the fence, she turned around to take the boys.

Castle was leading James by the hand towards the fence, backlit by the fire raging behind them, like some kind of heroic end to of a movie. James leaned against Castle's hand, and then he dropped to all fours and crawled right through easily.

Kate reached for him while Colin held up the fence, and James made a little noise when she caught him, like he hadn't been sure, couldn't have been sure she'd really be here.

"I got you," she murmured, but her eyes were on Wyatt. Castle had knelt down with the boy and he was pressing his shoulder into the side of the fence. She realized then that Wyatt had fallen asleep somehow, passed out in Castle's arms.

Her stomach fluttered. She tried to untangle from James to reach for Wyatt, to help Castle, but James wouldn't let her go. And it wasn't like she could carry the sleeping boy.

Castle arrowed his shoulders through the fence and crab-walked through it, his arms cradling Wyatt so that the boy never even woke. She touched Castle's back as he came near, and he flashed her a tight smile in the darkness even as Colin lowered the fence slowly back into place.

When Colin came back to take James from her, the boy whined into her neck, pressing close. She felt helpless in a way she never had before, helpless because she ought to be able to carry him, hold him, but she couldn't.

"Pass Wyatt to him," she told Castle. He looked bewildered. She nodded to Colin. "Just let him sleep and - and James be with you."

Castle shrugged but he carefully, awkwardly transitioned the boy to Colin's waiting arms. Wyatt stirred but he fell back to sleep, his cheek mashed against Colin's shoulder. 

Kate let out a breath and cupped the side of James's face. "Go with Castle," she murmured.

This time James released her without trouble, clinging now to Castle's shirt and burying his face in the man's neck. He relaxed almost instantly, and Castle's broad hand covered the boy's back and rubbed.

But his eyes narrowed on Colin. "Did you take something?"

"What?"

"From his body. You took something."

"Of course I did."

Castle swore so loudly that James startled. He cradled the back of the boy's head and pushed him back down to his shoulder. "This one can't be with you then. He feels it. He's like you."

"What?" Kate croaked, trying to scramble to her feet. Castle reached out and helped her up, almost automatically. "What are you saying?"

"Colin is - he senses things. It's part of the program."

"Why the fuck are you telling her?"

"She's part of this too," Castle growled. "And this boy - he's the same. She'll have to know."

"What does that mean - the same?"

"He knows I've got Black's fucking balls in my bag. Little empath can feel it on me."

Kate gaped at him. And then her stomach churned and she had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep from vomiting.

No fucking wonder James was unsettled with Colin.

Castle gripped her arm and pulled her in against him; she realized she was seeing black spots, that she'd needed something to lean against.

"Breathe, Kate."  
  
"I am," she promised, sucking in another clouded lungful of night air.

She could taste the fire on her tongue.

James pushed his foot into her body, a little hand against her neck. She turned and kept his hand, stepped away from Castle.

"We need to go," she got out. "The fire is getting close to the fence."

\-----

When Castle got to the Humvee, he was so eager to be done that he raced ahead a little, thumbing his key fob to unlock it and yanking open the back door. James was clinging to his shirt, but the moment he put the kid down in the floorboards, the boy sank to the scratchy material and laid down.

For a second, Castle was too stunned to remember why he'd been racing ahead.

The kid had just - he was going to sleep on the floor like it was - like it was at all okay, like the floorboard of a car was the best he hoped to expect.

Fuck.

And then he turned and saw Colin waiting on Kate who was struggling through the last of the underbrush. Castle went back to help, moving past his brother to capture the woman and scoop her up into his arms. She grunted and flinched, but he didn't bother to wait on her okay, just turned around for the open door of the Humvee.

James was still there. He'd forgotten that maybe the kid might fall out of the back. That - he just didn't think about things like that. Damn, this was going to be trial by fire.

Kate squeezed his neck. "Put - put me down."

"Backseat," he promised. He could feel her heart thudding erratically in her chest. She wasn't scared, he didn't think, but she'd been startled.

She gripped his neck and he oriented her through the back door, settled her on the seat. She gave a strange laugh and he realized her feet were on James's back.

"Give him-" she said, a little breathless, her arms untangling from his neck to reach for the boy.

"You're gonna lie down," he told her. "I'll be back here with you to hang on to the boys, but you're lying down."

She clutched the edge of the seat and he saw her swallow hard. She didn't want to, but fuck, she looked bad.

"Please, Kate. They're not losing you."

She shook her head; he could see her struggle. She had done nothing but struggle, and she still was. For them. He waited until she pulled her knees up and slanted towards the middle of the seat, putting her head down.

Castle turned around and plucked a still-sleeping Wyatt from his brother's arms. "Thanks. You're driving."

"No fucking way," Colin yelped. "Me? You never let me drive."

"Don't fuck around," Castle growled, digging into his pocket to hand the keys over. Colin gave a little war whoop that made Wyatt jerk on his chest, and then his brother was racing around to the driver's seat.

Damn. He was going to regret this.

He held Wyatt tighter and patted Kate's feet where she was curled up. "Shutting the door. I'm getting in on the other side." James was standing up in the floorboards, clinging to Kate's arm, but well away from the door.

Castle closed them in and then jogged around to the other side, dragging branches away from the back end of the Humvee. He wrestled a larger limb aside, only able to use one hand, and he heard the engine cut on. 

He didn't like leaving Kate alone, even if Colin was there, because he wasn't sure she trusted anyone. He kicked the last of the camouflage away from the vehicle and moved to the far driver's side back door.

When he opened it, Kate was half sitting up, stroking her fingers through James's hair. Castle climbed in and shut the door after himself, and then he lowered a sleeping Wyatt to the floorboards at his feet, bracing the boy between his legs.

"Come here, Kate," he said, reaching for her.

She flinched and eyed him, but he took her by the shoulders and eased her down, trying to be gentle, until her head hit his thigh.

She sighed, her knees drawn up. She kept one hand on James, but Castle leaned over and pulled the boy up into the seat, and James crawled into Kate's open arms.

Castle thumped the back of Colin's headrest to let him know they were set, and the Humvee growled as it began a slow reverse.

Kate cuddled James against her chest, the two of them settling in, her head still on Castle's thigh. When he was sure she wasn't going to try to move, he leaned over to check on Wyatt.

Still asleep. It was nearly five in the morning, and his night had been severely interrupted. He figured it would be best to leave him down there.

Castle sank back against the seat and lifted one hand to the brace above the window, hanging on. When Colin had reversed them out of their off-road hiding spot and gotten back up onto the trail again, Castle let himself lay his hand on top of Kate's head.

She didn't flinch this time at all. He glanced down and saw her arms were loose. She had fallen asleep.

Or passed out.

He released the handle and brought his fingers down to her hair, his heart pounding too hard in his chest. He stroked through the soft strands around her ear, being very careful not to disturb her.

James wriggled in Kate's arms and Castle held up a finger to his lips. James ducked back down and went still.

Castle put his hand on her shoulder, still combing through her hair, and tried to adjust to the weight of her in his lap.

But he didn't think he ever would get used to it. To this. Two boys and this woman who had - done everything Castle never could.

His father was dead. Dead and gone, never to rise again.

\-----

She roused once to the feeling of his fingers in her hair, warm and heavy. Like her mom used to do. She felt James in her arms, just as heavy, and sleep was alluringly dark and deep.

She had trouble staying under. There was an ache in her womb she knew was either really bad or just par for the course, but so far no blood. She felt lucky for that. She could trust that Wyatt was safe, that Castle had him somewhere even if she didn't know exactly where. James was quiet and not restless, so that meant Wyatt was fine too.

Her body was like lead. He was taking them to a doctor he knew, his brother, another brother. The boys were fine, they were fine; she couldn't think longer than tonight, than the morning as it dawned. She would have to let the doctor examine her and she was already not sure she could do that again.

But she would. She would have to. She wasn't going to die now, now that she'd finally gotten the fuck out of that place. No way. How pathetic would that be?

She was awake even if lethargic. She couldn't sleep with this ache between her legs. But she didn't open her eyes, didn't move - she had learned that trick early on. Not that she needed it here, but it felt nice to have his fingers in her hair, stroking over her ear, the heavy weight of his hand resting along her jaw - and he might stop if he knew she wasn’t asleep.

His hand was wide, his fingers were thick. She had always been tall, toe to toe with any guy, but she had never felt secured like this. Not safe but held. Not against her will, only - only - she didn't know. She felt like a little kid sometimes and others she felt old as dirt, but this was new. This was - she thought - being a woman.

Fuck, she had no experience with that. Not even with two boys - they weren't hers. They were two boys she'd nursed every two hours like a brood mare, injected with shots that made her feel heavy and exhausted or wired and unable to sleep for days and days. The boys had been taken away and returned, away and back, in a dizzy procession she'd had no control over. She just - was. It had been all she could do to simply exist.

Castle’s palm rested over her ear for a moment, pausing.

She wanted to touch this man. Touch him in some way that could make him feel as good as she felt right here, even exhausted and aching and confused - relief, and rest, and awareness all in one. She wanted to put that feeling back on him and see how he reacted to it, how he lit up or fell apart or whatever he might do.

She didn't know. It thrilled her to feel his fingers at her ear and the hard line of his thigh under her cheek and the heat of him wrapping around her.

Too fucking long. It had been, and she knew that's all this was, out of the game for too long, but she didn't even care. It wasn't like she could have sex with him, God, that was entirely impossible right now, but she knew how to do a few things-

His hand squeezed her shoulder. "Kate?"

She opened her eyes, turned her head to look up at him. His fingers trailed over her forehead and down her nose. She might stop breathing if he kept doing that.

"You okay?" he whispered.

"Yeah."

He studied her for a long moment.

"I'm okay," she told him. "Just - can't sleep. Doesn't feel over."

"It'll take three hours to get to Alex," he said. "It's over for now."

She had the overwhelming urge to crawl into his lap and hide her face, hide her whole self against him. But James was in her arms and that wasn't - fantasizing about giving him a hand job was one thing, using him as her crutch was another.

"Kate?"

"It's over for now," she mumbled back, turning her cheek to his thigh again. 

He gripped her shoulder. "I'm going to take care of everything," he said. "I won't let anything happen to you. Or to the boys. It's not fine, and it's not okay, but you survived. It’ll get better. I'll do everything in my power to make it better."

She closed her eyes to block out tears, wrapped her arm tighter around the boy to keep herself together.

"Kate, is there anyone - do you have anyone I can call for you?"

She sucked in a wretched breath, trembling now. "My - my dad. I want to - to call my dad."

\-----


	3. Chapter 3

Castle watched her dial a number three years old and put the phone to her ear. She was sitting upright now, but she was leaning against him, rather slumped, and he had James in his own lap. She was calling her father, and he could feel her heart thudding against his ribs where she was pressed into him.

God, he would probably have to meet her father. She was the mother of his children. In a really horrifying way, but it was still there, those connections, that blood, and her dad was these boys’ grandfather, hopefully a good man, but anyone was better than John Black.

Kate sucked in a ragged breath when the phone gave the error buzz and informed them, rather loudly, I'm sorry; your call could not be completed as dialed.

Kate dropped her hand, the phone in her lap. "I - it's been a long time," she croaked.

"I'll call a guy I know, have him look up your dad's number, okay?" He took the phone from her loose fingers, used the speed dial to call a contact he had in the telephone service. It would be better than using CIA resources, even though he was officially CIA, because his father wasn't - hadn't been - CIA. No, Black had been using military intelligence and black ops money for all of this.

He was afraid of who might know what, and some schmuck working at the local phone company wouldn't be part of anything. "Hey, there, Paul. How you doing? Yeah, yeah, look, do me a favor? I need the number of a New York City resident - Jim Beckett."

"James," she murmured.

"What?" he said, holding a hand over the phone.

"James Beckett. That's - legal name."

Oh, God. James. That was just-

Castle cleared his throat. "James Beckett, Paul. You got that? Yeah, he'd be in his mid-fifties. Probably Manhattan address."

Kate was watching him and he listened to Paul giving him bland small talk, and then he hung up when he could.

"How'd you know that?" she said.

"Manhattan? You just - look it. Carry it."

She blinked but didn’t ask. She merely laid her head against his shoulder one more. He wrapped his arm tighter around her, buried his chin at the top of her head. She smelled good. He had never smelled a woman that was - that made him feel like this.

Who the hell was she? Kate Beckett. 

She had stabbed his father with a scalpel. She still had it somewhere, tucked into those leggings or in the pocket of her sweatshirt, no idea. But she had it. And she had used it to kill John Black when Castle himself had always been too fucking afraid to even think for himself. He'd had years outside his father's walls before he'd even started to question.

He had first gone looking for his mother, but he'd had no idea where to start. Who. Not even a geographic location. He'd felt a yearning for New York City, and so he'd concentrated his search there, but he had nothing. Less than nothing. And Colin had joined him and done some damage, and Black had dragged Colin back inside, and Alex and Ben had pointed warning fingers, See, that's what happens. 

His mother. Gone. Forever gone. But these boys, the boys had their mother still, and would, and he'd make sure she had support, everything she might need. 

"What about your mom?" he said suddenly. "Does she have-"

"She's dead."

He buried his mouth against the top of her head, a kind of - kiss? He didn't know; he just felt the grief rising in her, the overwhelming nature of her sorrow. "I'm sorry. I - that must be - did you know her - I mean, have her long?"

Kate turned her face and pressed right into his side; he felt her teeth as she tried to control herself.

So it must be bad.

James whimpered and tried to crawl right up her shirt. Castle caught him and dragged him back to his lap, though Kate snaked her arm around the baby.

"Kate?"

"She was murdered," she croaked. "When he took me."

"Oh, God." He was going to be sick. "Oh, God, he - he killed your mom. Oh, fuck-"

"Not Black. Someone - else. A man, he was an Army guy. Coonan. Black told me his name was Coonan."

Castle froze.

She lifted her head, jerking back. "You know him?"

"I - killed him."

She sat up straight. "What?"

"About six months ago. I was in the Army with him, but he showed up on site at - at a facility like yours-"

"Not mine."

"No. Just - one of the same kinds, producing the elixir. He’d been hired on as a security agent. He was - fucking insane. I had to - it was close quarters."

"And what. Tell me. He fucking killed my mother and you took - took that from me - the chance - tell me everything."

"We're even," he husked.

She shut up, staring at him a second before she set her jaw and scraped a hand through her hair. She was shaky, but her color looked better for the sleep she'd gotten. An hour maybe.

But she was right; she deserved to know. "He was - had been at one time - part of a batch of failed experiments. Human beings can't sustain those elixir modifications long-term. Not as adults. And not without some kind of trace of altered DNA. Like the boys have, and their system adapts where as an adult... it’s like starting from scratch - and it's really bad. He went insane back in '96."

"He murdered my mother in '99," she said stiffly.

"He was for hire then. Still was when I ran into him. He had me pinned against the guard cage and Colin was inside the facility and if Coonan beat me then he'd raise the alarm and Colin would be a dead man. So I was - we were close, body to body, and I drew his own knife and gutted him."

Kate flinched. "How. Describe it."

He cleared his throat, fingers flexing. He lifted a hand and smoothed down the hair on James's head. He was being a good baby. "Knife was in his boot. When he kicked, I caught his foot and pulled the knife, and I jumped to my feet, bringing the blade up as I went. It caught him here-"

He touched the corner of Kate's hip and she flinched violently, eyes slamming shut. He traced a diagonal line across her stomach to just below her rib cage. 

"Upwards. And caught here, at his ribs. I could feel the knife scraping bone as I yanked it free, and his blood was hot spurting across my hand. As his insides spilled right out, against the back of my hand, I remember feeling his bowels tangle with the blade and how - strange it was - hard and soft and hot together."

"Fuck," she whispered, her eyes sliding open to stare at his. She pressed a hand to her mouth.

He didn't offer anything else; there was nothing else. Coonan, his old Army buddy, whom he had been so fucking regretful killing, regretful over how the program had fucked him up in the first place, Coonan had killed her mother and kidnapped her for Black.

He was so damn glad he'd done it and that it had been such a messy kill.

"We're even," she whispered, nodding back to him.

And then the tears slipped out of her eyes and down her cheeks, but she leaned away from him, curled her body against the far door to cry alone.

\-----

She could hear Castle murmuring to the boy, give her some time, let her be sad. She couldn't do anything about it because her face was buried in the seat and the door, that tiny corner, and every time she thought she had it under control, it came spilling out again.

Coonan was dead. He was dead. All of her demons were dead. Coonan. Saber. Black. There had been a nurse once but that had been two years ago, the woman who had given her the anesthetic and said nothing, face that bitter lemon, hating Kate even as Kate had hated her for being free.

She was long gone and maybe dead too, now that she thought about it. Castle and Colin had hit other facilities, and people were dead, and she had killed his father with her own hand, killed the things inside her just to get there, and she would have done that sooner with these boys here too if she'd known what was happening.

But it had been eternally too late. She had felt the flutter of their movement inside her and it had been too late.

Four weeks was nothing. Four weeks was an accident. Four weeks was dividing cells and - and she didn't know. She had no idea; her biology class had been in high school, junior year, and it had been mostly dissecting frogs and shit and not - not a health class. God, she'd been in fifth grade the last time she'd had a real, honest conversation with adults about how babies were made.

And now she was the adult. It was impossible that her mother was gone, just gone, but she knew - she had seen the blood drenching the pavement the second Coonan had snatched her by the hair and dragged her away from her mother's body. And then two more stab wounds with her mother already down while Kate had fought - fought - and God, would she never stop sobbing like a child?

"Okay, okay, enough," Castle growled, and he was wrapping a hand around her arm and dragging her away from the door. She lashed out, forgetting, but she caught his raised arm and she realized too late James but Castle was tugging her all the way into his lap so that she was crowded there right with the boy.

His arms were tight; she was shuddering through another sob and trying in vain to swallow it down, to gulp it all back.

"No crying alone," he gruffed in her ear. "No more of that."

"Sor-sorry-"

"Cry together," he whispered. His voice was as raw as she felt. "Makes me feel like shit you crying in the corner."

"I shouldn’t-"

"You can. Fuck, you - out of all of us - you get to cry. Me? I was a coward and I did nothing to help myself for more than twenty years. And Colin knew better, but he was dangerous and suicidal when he tried it, and he only got himself locked up. So you get to cry, love. You did all the hard parts."

"Gonna - make. Make James cry. Don't let me-"

"He's fine. Aren't you, kid? Better now that you're over here where we can touch you. See?"

She didn't want to see. She wanted to curl up in the darkness and not see or hear or be anything. 

And then before she could quite pull herself out of it, Castle was kissing her cheek, his lips against her wet skin. His - tongue - his tongue at her tears.

She sucked in a ragged breath and he wrapped his arm around her neck to keep her awkwardly balanced on his lap, and even though it was constraining, it was kind of nice to not - not have to be so violently, aggressively insistent upon herself.

Someone else was insistent upon her.

He was kind of bullying about it, but no one had been bullying for her. And his mouth was soft.

"Hey, that's better," he murmured. "That's a lot better. Now I don't feel like you're gonna lose all your fluids out of your tear ducts."

"You are the worst shoulder to cry on in the world," she muttered. But he laughed and squeezed her neck, kissed her cheek again. It was really rather sexless, and that was disappointing in a stupid way.

"I've never had anyone cry on me before," he said. "So cut me some slack."

"Never?"

"Nope. You're my first. Cry-shoulder virgin."

"Oh, God," she groaned, but she was laughing. James wriggled out from under Castle's arm and into her lap, and she was shaky with exhaustion, but she took him, realized it was the first time she'd been able to cuddle him like he wanted.

She'd always put them off. It was too hard. She could never...

"Also the first time I haven't had the pleasure," he murmured at her ear. His fingers stroked her shoulder and she realized - acutely - that he meant her. He hadn't had the pleasure of her. And yet - two boys. They had two boys together - not together - whatever.

"Well, fuck, that's one way to kill the mood," she muttered, lifted her head to glare at him. He laughed and snaked hair away from her lashes, curled it behind her ear. He looked sappy and she batted at his hand. "Don't go falling for me, soldier."

He grinned back at her. "Think it's a little too late. You were awesome. That was so badass. All righteous fury and the red haze. Completely turned on. It's deplorable, I know. But there it is."

Her mouth dropped open. She had no idea if he meant it or if he was just messing around, trying to make her laugh, but fuck did she want him to be serious. And that was weird and probably wrong and yes, deplorable too, but she'd left deplorable pretty far back there, three years back there, and he was being kind and it was making her fall to pieces. 

And then he blushed and ducked his head, his fingers smoothing now over James's onesie, as if it might be wrinkled, and Castle wouldn't look at her.

So he - he must mean it.

"You're the first person I haven't needed to flinch away from," she said roughly. "So - I'm not sure you should be counting on me for anything."

"Too late," he said softly. "Counting on you to live."

\-----

He had no idea what he was doing.

He could see Colin’s eyes in the rearview mirror and at first the asshole had been smirking and sniggering at him, but now there was a grim kind of oh hell in there that he knew - he felt it too - but fuck, what was he supposed to do against this kind of feeling?

He was twisted up in knots over this woman - this girl - and she’d been badly abused by his own fucking father, and she had been forced into parenthood with him and now what?

It was all questions, only questions. All he had churning in his guts were questions. She was unbroken, despite everything, even in tears, unbroken, and he - contrarily - was a fucking wreck. Wreckage.

His father was dead. 

Holy fuck, he didn’t know what happened to him after that. What happened now?

Nothing. 

There was a void. Castle had made a plan, and there had been this idea for how it would go, that it would be hard and his life’s work, that he would have to toil away, ripping down what his father had built up, diligent and dogged and Sisyphean.

He’d intended to dismantle the program one fucking stone at a time until there was nothing, but now this. Kate had done it. It was done. With a scalpel.

Fuck.

“You cracking up?” she muttered against his shoulder.

Castle shrugged. “Might be.”

“Can’t. Only one of us can crack up at a time and right now it’s me.”

“If this is you cracking up, holy fuck, I’m impressed.”

She grunted but he thought that was a laugh anyway, and he felt so smugly pleased for making it happen. And now Colin was making a face at him in the rearview mirror again and Castle lifted his hand to give him the finger.

Kate laughed. “What?”

“Colin’s being an asshole.”

She shifted against him and James - fuck that kid really should be sleeping, right? - James shifted with her and clung to both of their shirts. Kate knocked into his arm as she moved, and she let out a little breath that teased his neck, and he was having to really struggle to keep from being aroused.

It was entirely not appropriate.

It was getting harder and harder to convince himself of that the more she squirmed in his lap. But there was a kid sitting here with them too, and he had to just - stop thinking about her.

Kate let out a sad little breath again, right at his neck, but he realized it wasn’t just grief, it was trauma. She was - she had been very badly - she had been taken from her dying mother, and now she couldn’t reach her father, and she didn’t know him. She didn’t know him at all, but she was having to trust him for her life, with these two little boys that weren’t really hers either, but she had their care because they had - they lived inside her for nine months.

Fucking hell. 

Trauma. He could be making it worse for all he knew, his father’s son, gripping her too hard, making her - forcing her to-

He released her shoulder immediately, but then he had to put his hand on her back to keep her from falling off his thigh. She clutched his shirt, her arm tightening around James so that the boy mewled at her, and she let out a shaky little laugh.

“I’m - all over you,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’ll - um - I can just-”

“No,” he croaked, clutching her again. “I just - didn’t want you to think you couldn’t - if you don’t want me to - I won’t make you-”

“No, I’m - I’m okay,” she whispered.

He let out a breath. Found himself wrapping his arm around her again. 

“You were the one who said don’t cry alone,” she said. She seemed to be trying to tease him.

“I did,” he said, nodding against the side of her head. “I said that. But if you really - fuck, Kate, my father has kept you against your will for three years. Don’t let my asshole feelings get in the way if you really need to just - just curl up alone.”

She shuddered, making a fist in his shirt. “He’s dead.”

He buried his nose in her hair. “He’s dead. God, it’s - over. It’s over. There’s - I guess there’s clean up. I’m sure there will be - I’ll have to sit down with Colin and figure out who else is out there and who might be - dangerous to us.”

She lifted her head, staring straight down into him. “Are there other people in on this?”

“We’ve been in this for twenty years,” he scraped out. “My brothers and I. Black was the - the whole beast. The nightmare.”

“So it really is over,” she whispered.

“For you, love, yeah, it is.”

“No. What else is there? Who else? I don’t want anyone to go free.”

He cupped her face in his hands, brushing back the messy strands of her hair. She needed a shower and sleep and - and medical attention. He knew it was bad when regular people got the elixir - look at Coonan - and she’d held up for three years. Coonan hadn’t made it three weeks.

No fucking wonder his father had-

“No one is going free,” he promised her.

“I want - want to be there when you-”

“Cut off their balls?” he said, lifting an eyebrow.

She steeled herself against his goading, set her jaw as she clenched her fists in his shirt. “I’m not a child. I haven’t been since Coonan stabbed my mother in front of me and fucking sold me to John Black. I want in on this. I am already in.”

Castle glanced down to the boy on his lap. Wyatt was asleep in the floorboards. What exactly did Kate think she was going to be doing?

And what did he think he would be doing? He had two boys; they were his fucking responsibility, to make up for what his father had done, to give them something - anything at all.

“Think your dad would baby-sit for us while we go burn the whole fucking thing to the ground?”

She choked on a laugh, sank back against his side. “Yeah. He would.”

Castle rubbed her shoulder with one hand, made sure he had a grip on the boy as well. James was listing towards Kate - his mother. She was his mother, and he wanted her, and she opened an arm to the boy and let him crawl over into her lap.

She had been - she had let herself be for these boys what they needed. She hadn’t been forced to do that - she didn’t have to even like them. But she did anyway.

His sons. She loved his sons.

He wanted to love them too.

\-----

For some reason, it got harder to hold on.

Her arms were too loose around James; she felt him shifting and settling against her chest, falling asleep finally, and she was following. Slowly. Like fading out.

They were in the tunnel heading into New York City. She felt the darkness press down over her like a blanket. The peculiar thrum of wheels on pavement echoing in concrete made it hard to open her eyes. It was a familiar noise, a welcome home kind of noise, and she knew when she called her dad it would be fine again, everything would be fine.

Her lips felt numb.

She was heavy and her legs were hooked over his thigh and her body slumped into his side. James was sweaty against her chest; he had heated up quickly. She’d never known babies would be so hot, so close, would want to sweat right against her skin. 

Made the whole world humid. Made it a struggle to breathe deeply.

Kate tried to close her hand around the boy’s back but she couldn’t make a fist. She couldn’t make a fist and she felt - drained. Everything was draining out of her. It was a long time before her next heartbeat came.

“Castle?” she mumbled. Her head was heavy against his shoulder.

She felt the car beginning to slow. They’d been in the tunnel and now they were in the stop-and-go traffic of the city and the car was slowing. She heard him talking to his brother up front, giving instructions, back and forth. He leaned forward and she cried out, felt like her whole body was out of her control, pitching sharply.

“I got you,” he husked. “I got you. He’s not falling. You’re not falling. Dream, love. It’s a dream.”

I’m not asleep, she thought. Something in her chest struggled and she realized it was her heart, struggling, and she couldn’t come up.

“Kate?”

I’m not asleep.

“Kate!”

She felt herself being laid flat, the boy gone, her body like rubber, her eyes not opening.

“Colin, fucking double park, I don’t care. Right now. Right now.”

Not good. This was... not good.

She couldn’t hang on.

\-----

Castle carried her up but he only got as far as the lobby before Alex - and Ben as well - were hurrying out to meet them. 

“What the hell?” Alex choked out. Ben hovered just past his shoulder, but Castle elbowed them aside and set Kate down on the cold marble floor. 

“She’s - I can’t wake her up. Her pulse is thready, breathing shallow. She had a D&C - recently, I don’t know how long, but I found her in the trial room so it was probably sometime tonight. Surgeon was still gloved.”

“D&C,” Alex breathed, knees cracking on the floor as he came down. “Fuck. Rick. I don’t have any experience in obstetrics, I have no clue-”

“You can at least stabilize her, at the very fucking least, you can-”

“Holy fuck, there are two babies. Colin has two fucking babies-”

“They’re - hers. She’s the - he made her into some kind of - fuck, Alex, just fucking help us.”

“She’s breathing, airway is clear. Pupils react to light. Carry her upstairs and I’ll start IV fluids and - and do a pelvic. Fuck, Richard. I-”

He was already gathering Kate back against his chest, standing up slowly to be sure she wouldn’t fall, and then he saw Colin struggling with the boys. Ben was hanging back, and Ben was the last one he’d want, but they had no choice here.

“Ben. Fucking take your hands out of your pockets and take one of the babies.”

“God.”

“Ben is the last person you want holding your sons,” Colin said.

“His what?”

“Can we all not be having this conversation in my lobby?” Alex said, rolling his eyes. They were all of the same height, trees crowding the small space, and Castle wanted to fucking knock them all on their asses.

But he just nodded towards the elevator in the lobby. “Can we get going. I don’t know what’s wrong with her and you all are just standing around-”

“You have sons.”

“I don’t have sons,” he hissed. “I have fucking genetic material that John Black fucking-”

“All right, all right,” Ben said hurriedly, ever the peacemaker. He reached out and took - God, Castle had lost track of which kid was which but they weren’t identical. The little one. That was Wyatt.

“No, Colin - switch with him.”

“I don’t have the fucking package on me,” Colin muttered.

“You have it in your head?”

“Right now I’m thinking about how fucking white as a ghost she is-”

Castle turned, ignoring Colin’s comment - he had a point, why was Castle standing around too? - and he shoved his way through his brothers towards the elevator. Alex was at his side, apparently trying to take her pulse, counting under his breath as he pressed two fingers just at her jaw.

Everyone crowded into the elevator together and it groaned as it started up. The building was a nice one, of course, nothing but the best for the golden boy. Alex was - had been - John Black’s public son, the one he trotted out for dignitaries and backers and visiting officials. The doctor, the proud participant in the program, happy to continue the work, doing his part.

Castle had sometimes hated Alex, but Alex had made it clear that there wasn’t enmity here. He didn’t see it as picking sides, not when it was just how life was for them. 

But when Alex found out their father was dead, that Kate had stabbed him-

Fuck, okay, keeping that to himself for now. He shot Colin a single look across the elevator, making it burning bright in his head, that singular thought, and Colin’s face soured.

He’d gotten the message.

“Pulse is - slow,” Alex announced. “How much blood has she lost?”

“I don’t know,” Castle said blankly. “None? Not that I’ve seen. She - ah, self-terminated. And then they did a D&C. She was being held there to breed more like them. Those boys. My boys.”

Alex blinked. That had been a look - what had he known? Had he known this was going on?

“She’s been given the elixir,” Colin piped up. Apparently he’d sensed something in that exchange as well. “She’s been primed, Alex, like an animal for breeding. She’s been on the program for three years.”

Alex’s lips pressed tightly together. He was a big man, bigger than Castle, his shoulders wide, at least two inches taller. He had always been scary to Castle as a little kid, and some of that had never quite dissipated.

“Alex,” he said, trying to go for pleading. Alex was like Black in that - he felt important when you begged. “She needs your help - I need your help. She’s been - treated badly. And these two boys, these are her boys, and they - they’re too little to not have a mother.”

Alex frowned. “I’m a doctor, but I don’t practice like you’re thinking, Rick. And I know nothing about-”

“Just don’t let her die. You’re the only doctor who knows a fuck about the elixir, about what it can do to a regular person if they’ve never had - if they’re clean.”

“Three years,” Alex said slowly. He shook his head and the elevator doors opened. But he didn’t hesitate, didn’t balk. He led their group off the elevator just as he’d led them growing up.

They filed off after him - in order of age, as they’d always done, Alex, Ben, Rick and then Colin. 

Old habits.

Castle had no idea how Alex and Ben were going to take the news that Black was dead.

\-----

She woke in a stranger’s bed.

Rough comforter at the insides of her arms, her body felt weighted down. The sheets were cool when she turned her head, cool at her cheek, but she was hot.

Someone was crouched-

“Castle,” she rasped.

His head came up. He looked like he’d been praying. “Hey,” he whispered. He rubbed his hand down his face. “Hey, you’re awake.”

“Think so,” she mumbled. She felt hot. Her body ached. She turned her head and flinched at the IV draining into her arm.

“Alex has you hooked up to fluids. Just fluids. I’m not - he’s looking at the files on you, Kate, but I won’t let him put shit into you until you can decide for yourself.”

“It’ll kill me,” she mumbled. Felt like talking through rocks. “No more elix-”

“No, love. No more. It would just be - like a tailored - but no. Definitely not until you can stay awake.”

“Feel like shit,” she whispered, letting her eyes close.

“Just fluids to keep you strong,” he said. His voice was very close. “But Kate, Kate?”

“Here,” she said, dragging her eyes open to look at him. His face relaxed; he touched her forehead with his fingers, stroking. 

“It could be the - the procedure they did. You might have pulled stitches. Alex can’t - he couldn’t tell.”

Her face burned; she closed her eyes. “He couldn’t tell.”

“I - didn’t know if you’d - I’m sorry.”

One of his brothers had taken a look. Well, fuck, it wasn’t like she’d had privacy for three fucking years. She’d given birth in front of a roomful of strangers. When you had hands reaching inside you to shift a boy’s head around to come out right, fuck. Fuck.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She shook her head, hearing her hair crunch against the pillow. She felt like shit. Everything ached. “Where are the boys?” she whispered.

It struck her funny that she could ask. She had asked for them that first night after. When they’d taken them away, so small and tiny, premature, and she had asked, what did you do with them? She had thought, maybe, they had died.

“They’re right here, Kate.”

She opened her eyes. Castle leaned back and nodded, and she followed his gaze. But she couldn’t see.

“On the floor,” he murmured. “Both asleep. They woke up when we got here. Didn’t want to be in a different room.”

“Been in a different room their whole lives,” she muttered.

“But not now. No need now, no reason.”

She nodded slowly.

“You feel any better, love?”

She didn’t understand the endearments. The way he said it so easily, like it was natural, this thing between them. It wasn’t. And she was tired. She felt like something had been lost.

“My dad?” she said finally.

“Haven’t heard back yet. I’ll let you know.”

Something strange on his face; she didn’t understand the smooth way he looked at her. “I’m okay,” she said. But she didn’t know if it was true. “I’m... better than before.”

“You were unconscious.”

“Really tired,” she husked.

“Yeah, love, of course,” he murmured. His fingers came back to her hair, like he couldn’t help himself. “You should sleep if you can. Rest. Definitely need rest after a thing like that.”

“Don’t patronize me,” she mumbled.

“No, course not.”

“Doing it now.”

“I like you so feisty,” he whispered. “Might be antagonizing you just a little.”

“Mm, good at it.”

“It’s an honor.”  
She grunted, tried to lift a hand, found herself fumbling at his thigh. He was sitting with her. He had bent down to brace himself on his elbow and she turned to look at him. He traced the hair back from her forehead.

He was being kind.

“You know something about my dad,” she croaked.

His face got very sad.

“Oh, God,” she moaned.

“I’m so sorry, Kate.”

“Oh, God, no-”

“He died two years ago.”

She sobbed so hard she choked, and he just - he just pulled her up into his arms and let her weep.

\----

She fell asleep crying against him - or passed out. He didn't know. She was sucking in ragged breaths one moment and then completely limp the next, and he didn't think it would be good for her to be lying flat after that, so he just - stayed.

He just stayed, his back against the headboard, propping her up. 

He stroked her hair, damp with tears, wiped the heel of his hand against his pants where the salt was drying. His arm was tight around her but he couldn't bring himself to loosen up.

He'd expected, somehow, to pass along the responsibility. That was the real crux of the matter. She'd wanted her dad and he'd felt relieved not mine to worry about any more and now her father was gone and there was no one to call for back-up. He was her back-up, being those boys' father.

He wasn't sure he could do it.

He wasn't sure he was even making the right decisions now, taking her to Alex when his brother had never made it a secret that he'd docilely gone along with every portion of the program. Colin used to say that Alex was too needy to break free - needed the attention, like love, even if it was twisted and wrong. And Castle always had pointed out that Colin was no better, but he'd settled for negative attention.

Why could he not stop thinking about his father? Abusive, manipulative man. It was one thing to take his own sons and put them in a program, to shape their minds and bodies for a specific purpose. In some ways, it wasn't entirely different from what any other parent did. But to design- 

Look what he'd done to Kate.

If he needed confirmation, if he had needed to be convinced, here it was. Castle had sons he would never have known about if he and Colin hadn't gone looking for trouble. And Kate. Kidnapped off the street at nineteen years old, her mother stabbed, and sold to his father for breeding. 

What had the elixir done to her? What had his father-

"Richard."

He jerked his head up and Alex standing in the doorway. The room was dark for the boys' sake, and Alex didn't seem comfortable treading inside. "Alex."

"She's pretty advanced," his brother said without preamble. "But it looks - like she's adapted? Her bloodwork isn't right, and her heart muscle may be deteriorated, but I'm seeing markers for increased mitochondria functioning, which is good."

He swallowed. "So what does that mean?"

"I don't know," Alex said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I work with already established data sets-"

"You mean us. Our-"

"And the - boys."

Castle's heart plummeted. "The boys. You knew about the boys."

"I knew - their data sets existed."

"And what - data sets aren't real people?" he harshed.

"I... I'm given a set of parameters and I extrapolate to the nth degree. What happens if this is changed, what do we do if these markers appear-"

"Did you think he was making up two entire people for you to guess at?"

"I-" A shrug, hands shoved deep. "Yes."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me, Alex."

"I do my job. It keeps us alive you know. I'm the one who sets up the limitations on what he makes us fucking do."

"I can't believe you." Except Castle could. He could totally believe it. And if he weren't trapped under Kate right now, he'd have punched his brother. "So you can't do a thing to help, can you? Invalid data sets."

"I just - it's just that she's not - not special. Like us. Like the boys. I don't know what happens if we stop giving her high doses of iron or withdraw supplements. But I do know what happens if we continue to give her the doses that we were - fucking holes in her brain-”

Continue giving her the doses we were? Who the fuck was we?

“-already this shit is bonding to her proteins and inversing them. Enough malformed proteins and-"

"I know what happens," Castle growled. His fucking brother was part of this.

He'd known that to some extent, but Alex had been more than cautiously skimming the surface. Alex had gone deep, and it wasn’t just data sets, for fuck's sake. Two new sets of biological data and Alex hadn't once said to his brothers, hey, there might be others like us. Not only that, but this ‘we’ he mentioned so naturally, without thinking about it - the ‘we’ told on him.

Black and I - that’s what it meant. Alex had been cozied right up to their father for decades, but Castle hadn’t wanted to come right out and say they weren’t on the same team any longer. Damn, Castle still hadn’t told them about their father’s death - and at Kate’s hand. He wasn’t sure now he should.

But fucking hell, if Alex had been working on the mitochondrial level, then he'd known they were Castle's biological offspring. He had known. Data sets, for fucking-

He was getting her out of here. He'd talk to Colin quietly, alone, and they'd sneak out with Kate and the boys. Alex wasn't normally a fighter, but Castle knew his brothers would try to stop him.

But they couldn't stay. He had promised to get her out and this - here - this was still in.

\-----

The boys woke at seven.

Kate didn't. 

The boys didn't cry, but even Castle could tell they weren't happy. They had these low whines, both of them, that suggested some kind of distress. When his own stomach rumbled - it was timed for the huge breakfast he usually ingested to keep his machine at top performance - that was when it hit him.

Food. They were hungry.

He didn't know what babies were supposed to eat, and he didn't even know how old these two were either - which he knew would alter what types of food they could eat. The boys stood beside the bed clinging to the mattress, their pitiful faces upturned, Wyatt's streaked with tears he didn't give voice to. Silent, hopeless tears - both boys straining for the still-unconscious Kate.

"I know, I'm no good to you," Castle muttered, bending over the bed to scoop Wyatt into his arms. When that left James alone on the floor, the boy dropped back down as if - as if that was it. Done. Wyatt had been taken and not him, and he laid his cheek against the blanket on the floor, silent and sad.

Castle's throat closed up. He put Wyatt between his body and Kate's and then he leaned over and hooked his finger in James's onesie, tugged until he could get a grip on the boy. He pulled James up onto the bed as well and then he realized.

Diapers. 

"Ah, got it, I got it," he murmured. "Hey, boys, stay right here, okay? There's stuff in my bag." 

Castle laid James beside his brother and put a staying on hand on his belly, and then he turned and hunted for his bag. He unzipped the main pocket and yanked out the loose diapers, the package of wipes, and the cream. Diaper rash cream? It had been with the other stuff, so he had thought it was important. Maybe he’d leave that alone for now.

When he turned back to the bed, James was standing up near Kate's head, clinging to the wood headboard, and Wyatt was lying sprawled over her stomach.

"Holy fuck, guys, come on. Let's leave her alone." Shit, that had happened fast. And very quietly. They were damn ninjas.

He left Wyatt where he was and scooped up James, deposited the kid on his back to unsnap the white - formerly white - onesie. He pulled it up and ripped the tabs off the rather burgeoning diaper, oh hell, this was going to be - oh, not bad. Okay. He could do this.

"You're only a little bit disgusting," he told James. "It's not bad. There's no need to look so serious. I promise I won't kill you."

He didn't think.

He cleaned off the boy's bottom and then - uh, shit, where was he supposed to put this? Sorry, Alex, on your floor.

He wiped the kid down with no less than fifteen wipes, and then the new diaper wasn't that hard to figure out. He remembered how the old one had been, and he’d always been good at putting shit back where it went. When James was diapered, Castle went ahead and took off the kid's onesie as well.

"Clean clothes, right? And you smell alright now that your diaper is changed. So. We're good for now." He turned to Wyatt, who was huddled half on top of Kate's stomach. "Hey, uh. What are you doing there, kid?"

Wyatt lifted his head and gave him a pathetic look, and it shot a jolt of fear straight down Castle's spine. But James was the one like Colin, right? James was the one who knew things. If James was okay, then... Kate was okay. Surely.

"Come here," he husked, grabbing Wyatt by the ankle and pulling him off of Kate. When Castle ripped open Wyatt's diaper, it was a little messier to handle, and the boy kept squirming, not happy, ill at ease with Castle's hands on him. 

And then Castle got shit smeared across his wrist and he could only stare at it for a second.

"Fuck," he muttered, letting go of the baby to grab a wipe and clean himself off. "You're lucky I've had worse in the catacombs of Paris. This is not ideal though, kid. You need to stay still."

He realized he had no idea where James had crawled to, and he glanced wildly around until he spotted the boy on the floor, clutching his ragged doll in one hand and chewing on the corner of the blanket.

"Ah, shit, okay. You're hungry. I got it. I'll figure something out." He needed Kate to wake up and tell him how old they were, just so he could do an internet search on what you fed babies their age. 

He finished cleaning Wyatt off and then dumped that dirty diaper on top of the one from James. When he'd managed to get the clean one in place, he was actually proud of how well it fit. No gaping, unlike what he'd pulled off of Wyatt to begin with.

He stripped the onesie off the boy and threw it towards his bag, and then he gathered the dirty diapers and headed out into the hall. He found Colin guarding the door, but his brother backed up in horror at Castle's offering.

"Oh, hell no. I will stay awake all fucking day and guard your girl, but I am not touching shitty diapers."

Castle snorted at him but moved on, dumping everything in the garbage in the kitchen. He could see that becoming a problem quickly, and so he rooted around in Alex’s cabinets for plastic garbage bags to take back with him.

"They awake in there?" Colin called out.

"Yeah," he said. "Well, the boys are. Kate isn't. Hey, I need to use Alex's laptop and find out what the fuck they're supposed to eat for breakfast."

"Alex has cereal," Colin offered, shrugging. "And I think he's using his laptop right now."

Castle glanced over his shoulder to his brother's closed door. Kate and the boys were using the guest room that was usually Ben's, but Ben had camped out on the couch last night. This morning. Whatever it was.

He opened the pantry and pulled out the box of cereal, studying it critically. It was kid's cereal, Alex's one concession to lost childhood, and he figured it couldn't hurt to try. Puffy peanut buttery things. They had teeth so it might work. Better than nothing.

Castle returned to the bedroom, clapping Colin on the back as he moved past, and Colin just shrugged him off. When Castle got back inside, Wyatt was lying on top of Kate again, his cheek pressed against her dirty sweatshirt, tears rolling down his cheeks. James was standing up beside the bed, one leg hiked up, clutching the bedcovers in fists - caught in the act of climbing.

"Okay, I see how it is. You're the oldest, aren't you? Protecting your little brother when he needs you. Good boy." He scooped James up and sat with him on the bed, tossing the plastic bags towards his backpack, putting the cereal on the floor. He laid a hand on Wyatt’s back to offer him some kind of comfort. "Well, look. We need to get you guys dressed and then - we'll see about Kate. Okay? I'm sure she's fine."

But he wasn't sure. And despite having a baby lying on top of her, crying for her (albeit silently), she hadn't woken up.

Castle left James with his brother and moved to get the clothes he'd stuffed into his bag. Identical outfits seemed a bad idea - these two looked so similar even though Wyatt was smaller - but he had a handful of soft sweatpants and plain t-shirts. 

Not really anything fun. Just - serviceable. Blue sweats for Wyatt and grey for James, and then he found t-shirts buried in the bottom (of course he'd grabbed mostly black ones). He was careful of their heads as he pulled the shirts on, and they actually seemed to want to help, angling their arms into the sleeves and sitting still for him. Wyatt had white, James got black. Not too bad.

"Hey, guys, look at that. All clean and dressed. Okay. So I have cereal for breakfast. Best I could do."

He brought the box up from the floor and shook it to arouse their interest. Wyatt was trying to climb back towards Kate, so Castle had to quickly corral him.

"I know. I'm no substitute for her. But let's just - agree to be civil until she feels like waking up." 

He opened the box and got James's attention, at least, so he let the boy reach in - and in and in - for his own fistful. He nearly disappeared inside the box. Castle laughed when James pulled out his handful - the shock on the boy's face was awesome. 

Castle plucked one puffy cereal from the kid's fingers and popped it into his own mouth, chewing widely for effect. "See? Like that." 

He took another and brought it towards James's mouth and the boy very hesitantly opened. Such round eyes, courage and fear of the unknown both. Castle touched the cereal to James's tongue and then pushed it inside the kid's mouth.

James blinked.

"Good?" He glanced to Wyatt and the other boy had given up climbing all over Kate, had laid his cheek against her hand.

Fuck, it just - twisted his heart. It was so damn pathetic, their quiet and forlorn mannerisms. Used to being alone, used to being without her, used to coldness from adults. Had they even had care-givers? His father had never let him or his brothers get attached to anyone, never the same tutors, instructors, or servants for long.

Damn. He was pissed all over again.

He glanced to James. The boy was frozen in place. Castle took another cereal for himself and opened his mouth wide, showed James he was chewing. "See? Chew it up, kid. Don't try to swallow it."

James opened his own mouth and his drool spilled out along with the puff.

Castle laughed and that seemed to relax the boy. Castle scooped up the mushy puff and put it back in James's mouth. "Okay, well. Uh. Try that again. Chew it." This time the boy seemed to gnaw on it.

This was going to take all fucking day at this rate.

"Wyatt," he called. "My man, you are gonna get really hungry if you don't come over here and eat. Look, James likes it."

He held out a puff and teased Wyatt's lips with it. When the boy twisted his mouth to cry, Castle pushed it inside. 

Just like James, Wyatt went stiff with shock. Castle leaned in and got a hand under Wyatt's head, lifted him to sit upright with them on the side of the bed. 

"Hey, I'll let you cuddle up as much as you want after we get some food in you. Okay? I know you didn't get much time with - her."

Their mom. They hadn't spoken a word since he'd met them, but Kate hadn't called herself 'mom' either. Not in any of the exchanges she'd had, not once when she'd been whispering to them. He'd faltered just now when it had almost come out of his mouth.

She didn't call herself their mother. She didn’t even really call them her sons. Well, of course she hadn’t - fuck. Why would she want to - how could she even think about it?

That was as pathetic and terrible as the rest of it.

"Well, I'm - I'm your dad," he said finally. "Whatever else, that's who I am. That's what you got, guys. I'm nothing much, and I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I won't let you starve. I won’t - I’ll really try not to let anything bad happen to you. And - hey I guess let's all sit real close together while we eat, okay? How about that, Wyatt? Nice and close so we all feel safe."

He shifted back to the headboard near Kate; he'd left her propped on all the pillows Alex had, but she had still slumped a little. But at least this way she was close. He positioned the box of cereal on his other side and then he dragged the boys up with them.

He put Wyatt closest to Kate and James on his other thigh, and he wrapped his arms around them, tried to give them an embrace that would put them at ease.

He got a handful of cereal and opened his palm in front of them and Wyatt dove in first, grabbing a fistful and cramming them into his mouth.

"Whoa, okay. Uh, don't choke. Remember to chew. Careful, kid. I don't think Kate would be happy with me if I killed you trying to feed you."

But Wyatt seemed happier for the food, for the sweet taste no doubt, and James this time followed his brother’s lead.

Castle glanced beside him to where Kate was still unconscious. He leaned over and lightly kissed her forehead, feeling for himself just how warm she was. Fever hadn’t broken yet. Her hair was lank, her closed eyes seemed to sink into shadows.

"Be good if you woke up now," he whispered. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing."

But she didn't open her eyes.

\-----

Castle was fairly certain a backpack wasn’t the ideal place to hold a couple of babies, but it kept them contained and Castle could strap it to his chest and carry them out of here - and yet still have his hands free. 

James was looking at him as if he were nuts. 

"Entirely justified," he told the boy softly. "I know. But bear with me."

Castle eased up the zipper on one side and Wyatt squirmed - it was a weird feeling, these boys against his chest, their little bodies pushing up against his between the stiff material of his camp backpack. He'd stuffed diapers and baby shit into the side pockets, and then into the bag on his back - as well as the bag of cereal he’d taken out of the box and rolled up.

Along with four vials of elixir that had been in Alex's freezer. 

This might be a really terrible idea, but he'd worked out a plan in his head, and he couldn't keep hiding her away here. Not when Alex-

Shit, he didn't know about Alex. That was why he’d kept delaying. He needed his brothers around him, he needed their help, but he couldn't risk her life because he was too immature to take responsibility.

Her father was dead; she had no one but him.

God, that scared the shit out of him. Now he was the father.

Castle adjusted the strap and Wyatt rose a little higher, giving a squeak as he did. Castle chuckled and moved slowly in the room, making sure the boys stayed in place. It felt precarious, but it was more stable than he'd hoped.

"Okay," he breathed. "Let's-"

A shout from the end of the hall made both boys stiffen, and then the door banged open and Colin scurried inside, breathing hard. 

"Col-"

"Alex tried to call dear old dad."

"Oh, fuck."

"He tried calling two others - I don't know who. But he can't reach - anyone high up. He tried to call Black."

"We can't stay here," Castle said grimly. He was momentarily shocked when Colin only nodded, heading swiftly for his own bag in the corner of the room. The fact that Colin agreed meant that Alex wasn't thinking good thoughts.

"Yes," Colin said witheringly. "I'm going to fucking help you. I see you've got the monkeys secure. I think I can carry her if you go first." He shot a swift look towards the far wall - where Alex's room was. "With your gun out, Castle. You hear me?"

"Are you serious?" he croaked.

Colin said nothing, just leaned in over the bed and detached the IV from the back of Kate's hand. His brother liked to be dramatic, but fuck.

"Okay, we're - taking her to a hospital," Castle said. "I'll use the Humvee but you'll have to help me make it look right when we get there. Nothing suspicious. Can't use a makeshift backpack to carry the boys inside-"

"You're a nice little family," Colin hurried out. "I got it. I'm Uncle Colin. I'll help you get her there, but fuck, I'm gonna have to split after. Take the Humvee and do some serious work to disappear it."

"Yeah," he nodded. "And Alex?"

"He's not on our side, Rick," Colin said darkly. His face was like stone as he heaved Kate into his arms. "He never has been."

Castle swallowed hard, but he unholstered his weapon and wrapped his free arm around the boys' heads. They weren't happy, and they squirmed against him, but Wyatt's little hand came out and clutched his forearm, as if to hang on.

He dropped his head and dusted a kiss on top of each of theirs, his heart clenching. Col stood with Kate and his nostrils flared at Castle’s display, but he only nodded for the door. He was smaller than Castle but just as tall, and he could do a lot in an emergency.

Castle went first, muscling his way through the narrow doorway. Ben was standing there in the hallway.

Castle didn't know whether to raise his weapon or not. "Ben. Just-"

"What did you to do Dad?"

“Dad-” Colin started snarkily.

No time for this. "Ben. I need you to stand aside," Castle insisted. "Before Alex gets through to someone over there."

"What did you do?"

Fucking family drama. "Ben, stand aside."

And Ben did, as he always did, because he was the peacekeeper of the family. What family? This had never been a family, Black wasn’t their dad. They had been four boys thrown together and experimented on and made to compete for the cold, terrible attention of a man who called himself their father but was no dad at all.

Blood, sure. They were blood. But Colin was his true brother. Alex and Ben - they were just boys who had grown up beside them and shared their unfortunate DNA. Boys who had grown into men and set themselves against Castle and Colin.

Castle kept going, Ben following them down the hall and into the living room. Colin grunted and had to stop at the couch, put his knee into Kate's back to shift her, his biceps straining. Castle kept the gun at his side and quietly unlocked the door.

"He's calling the medical team," Ben said then. "For her. Don't you want her to live?"

"Not inside a cage," Castle said harshly. "Not where she can’t even hold her sons. No. Col?"

"I got her. Just go."

He pushed through the front door and down the hall to the elevator, jogging swiftly to clear the way for Colin carrying Kate. He jabbed his thumb in the button and turned to look. Ben was standing in the doorway, his broad shoulders hunched, his face conflicted.

"You'll have to choose," Colin yelled back. "You can't keep pretending that what you do makes no fucking difference."

"Colin," Castle hissed. But he understood. Alex had ruled them, a miniature Black, but Ben had pacified them, giving up parts of himself to keep them at peace. Castle still craved Ben with them too.

"Fucking hell," Colin swore, averting his eyes, turning his face away, prefiguring Ben’s retreat. Castle's shoulders slumped as Ben went back inside the apartment.

The elevator came, the doors opened.

Colin flinched as he stepped inside, his eyes closing. "Alex got through. He called - Ben wasn’t lying - Alex called medical."

And not security. At least - at least there was that.


	4. Chapter 4

Kate woke once, and violently, while they shifted her onto a gurney. She gasped and flailed awake, and Castle jerked forward and claimed her hand, hovered close to her head.

"It's okay; you're okay." He dipped low to breathe in her ear. "Hospital, public hospital. I'm sorry."

She was heaving every breath, and the emergency department nurses, the on-call doctor were busy as they strapped her in and started wheeling her back. The charge nurse was bugging him for details, asking questions, and Colin followed a little more slowly with both boys in his arms.

Castle had carried her inside through the ER doors. The Humvee was parked right out front, and he should take the boys from Colin and let him get rid of the car - especially since there were no child's safety seats inside - but Castle couldn't let go of her hand.

Her eyes darted sideways, up to the ceiling, slid down to meet his again, disjointed. 

"Boys?" she whispered.

"Right here. We're all right here," he promised. "Won't leave you."

"Sir? Please, sir, we need to get her in a room and take her vitals." The nurse was fending him off, quite handily, very adept at the block. She had a clipboard she was handing over to him. "Fill this out and-"

"No," Kate cried, her fingers slipping through his as the gurney went on.

"I'm going with her," he said harshly. He dodged the nurse and reclaimed Kate's hand, but it was taken from him again when they taped her arm down to a styrofoam board and began to insert the needle.

"No," she moaned.

"Kate," he said, urgency slipping like a hook through his guts. "I promise it's okay. I promise you it's okay."

The nurse blocked him again, they were turning into a room and keeping him out. He pushed the clipboard back at the nurse and slipped inside, but Colin was caught out in the hall, two wriggling boys trying to get down.

“You shouldn’t be in here, sir-”

"I am not leaving her," he yelled.

The room went very still. He jerked forward and stood by the bed where they had shifted her; her hand clutched his. He couldn’t tell if his panic was hers or if some of it was his own, so thick did it clog his throat.

"Last time I left her," he said, inventing on the spot, "this is what I found when they let me back in. I am not leaving her."

Her fingers squeezed around his. It was a lie, but it wasn't entirely untrue. He’d found her this way, and he wasn’t about to let strangers work on her without someone she knew in the room.

A doctor was giving him a look, but one of the nurses patted Kate's hand. "We'll take care of you. You've got the best of care, honey."

"Patient history?" the doctor clipped.

The nurse with the clipboard started in - she had been the one he'd talked to when he'd carried Kate inside. "Spontaneous miscarriage. D&C procedure-"

"They sent us home," he said roughly, interrupting. They couldn't start questioning or wonder or fuck - ask for a psych eval. The boys were just outside; they could be taken if Child Services were to be called. "They sent us home. And now she - she's bad. Fever all night, topped at 103, and then I couldn't wake her this morning-"

Her fingers again, squeezing hard in his, and he turned his head back to look at her. Her face was white, bloodless, and her eyes were rolling back.

"Shit," he breathed, jerking towards her and cupping her face. "Kate-"

"Sir, please - back up. The heart monitor is hooked up and her heartbeat is steady - if a little slow. Steady. See that line? Look."

Castle lifted his head and saw the nurse pointing towards the monitor. Didn’t help a bit. "I won't leave her."

"Okay," the doctor snapped. "Fine. Stay. But stay out of the way."

Castle backed off, sensing a win that might be taken away from him if he couldn’t obey. He sidled up to the door as the nurses and doctor swarmed around her, and when they'd stopped throwing him little looks, he clicked open the door.

Colin was there. Both boys wore seriously sad faces. Castle reached through the crack in the door and grabbed James first, figuring him the quietest, and when he was settled, Castle held out the other arm for Wyatt.

Wyatt came, clutching his shirt, and Colin had to lean in close to make the hand-off. He stayed there a moment, his hand on Wyatt's back, and his eyes closed.

"Not too much," Castle whispered.

But Wyatt sighed and sank down against Castle's shoulder. Colin opened his eyes. "Not too much," he promised.

And then he left to deal with the car.

Castle pushed his back against the wall, hoping to make himself as invisible as possible, but he watched the dance going on around Kate's bed. Another doctor came swooping in the door, the first one was intubating her, and now Kate's legs were being bracketed up-

Castle flinched and ducked his head down close to the boys, their little heat warming his cheeks, but he didn't take his eyes off of her. Wouldn't. 

For her sake. Because she was unconscious and had no say and someone had to speak for her.

\-----

"Your wife is doing very well, responding to the antibiotics," the nurse whispered. "And her iron levels were depleted, but we're taking care of that."

Iron levels sent out warning bells in his head, but he kept his face neutral. "Thank you."

"Your boys are being so good," she cooed, smoothing a hand down Wyatt's head. The baby startled and stared at her, and the nurse seemed - ill at ease in return. Castle didn’t like that exchange.

"They miss her," he tried to excuse it. "She's been in the hospital. They don't understand."

"Of course, of course, they miss their mama. We're going to fix her right up." The woman gave him a beaming, encouraging smile and slipped out of the room.

When the door had closed, both boys relaxed against him once more, and Castle found himself relaxing as well. They all had the same mistrust of medical professionals. Great. "Runs in the family," he murmured. “Sorry for that. Do what I can to make it easier on you.”

He stepped further inside the room she'd been wheeled into after admittance downstairs. It wasn't a private room, but she had no roommate yet - the bed beyond the curtain was empty. Castle's arms were aching from holding the boys still for so long, though he knew half of the ache was in his head.

In his head, the battering of feeling that had come at him from both the boys and himself. Watching everything.

The OB had used some kind of probe and stitched her up again, a minor procedure, she'd said, but she was going to be examining her again for scarring. Castle didn't care so much about fertility, but that seemed to be the concern long-term, and he'd been forced to admit that he had no idea what Kate thought. They were going to try to 'keep' the uterus.

Fuck, he was shaking.

He should have driven her straight here, from the beginning. He had known she'd had a procedure, known that he had found her in the trial recovery room. But he'd been a bastard, thinking about himself, about keeping things quiet and not exposing himself or his brothers.

Or these boys either.

But she had needed medical attention. Serious medical intervention. And all he had done was try to keep her hidden.

Carrying the boys inside, the closer he got to Kate on the bed, the more James and Wyatt strained to reach her. Wyatt was humming now, and it almost sounded like words, like an effort at communication. Castle shifted right up against the mattress so they could see her.

Wyatt hummed mmmm at her, smacking his lips so that it nearly sounded like an early version of mama.

"I don't know," he whispered to Wyatt. "Maybe she - maybe we don't need to presume, kid. I hate to say it, but maybe just hold off on calling her that."

Whatever calming effect Colin might have had before on Wyatt had worn off, and now the boy was squirming hard to get down. Castle wasn't sure, but they clearly wanted her - and however much they'd been allowed to see her, it probably wasn't enough. At all.

So he ought to let them down. They were pathetic without her. 

One the other hand, she didn’t call herself their mother. Maybe the boys should be learning to cling to him instead. Maybe he should be the one to give them comfort, starting now, because he didn't know if Kate wanted them. She had fought for them, but she had fought to get her life back, and now her father was dead, she had no help at all, and-

But those few seconds when she had woken up on the gurney - she had asked about them. The boys. Her first question. Not the hospital, not why, not what’s going on. But the boys.

"Okay, okay," he whispered to Wyatt. "But you have to be so careful. So careful, you hear me? Both of you."

He gripped their thin little bodies and leaned over to place their feet on the mattress close to her hip. The guard rails would keep them in, at least, and she was breathing just fine, so it wasn't like the boys could do much damage - to her or to themselves.

He released them one at a time, slowly, and Wyatt crawled right up to her and laid his head against her chest, right over her ribs. James sat there, stoic little thing, watching over his brother as if to prove something to himself, or to Castle. Prove he was tough.

Wyatt's eyes closed, lulled by the sound of Kate's heart, but they could all hear that - the beating of the monitor echoed through the room.

Castle touched the back of James's shirt and smoothed it out, thinking this one would follow his brother. But suddenly the boy gave a jerking shudder and turned sharply back into Castle's arms.

"Whoa, whoa, okay," he whispered, gathering the him again. James buried his face in Castle's shirt, like he was trying not to fall apart.

Castle glanced to Wyatt, but the brother seemed concerned only with staying right where he was. So Castle left him there, figuring the railings would catch his fall if he did move, and he cradled James against his chest and walked the room with him.

"Okay, kid, okay. We're all gonna be okay." James was fighting it so hard, mewling against Castle's chest, not wanting to cry, but he was just a baby, and he'd been ripped out of his routines - even if those had been stultifying and terrible routines. And his one anchor - his mother - she was in a hospital bed and everyone was very concerned over her, and James was the one who could feel it.

So of course the kid was trying not to lose it.

"If you need to cry, you can do that," Castle muttered. "But not too much, okay? Because I don't know how to make you feel better, I'm new at this job."

James let out a pitiful sound, his body all tight and compact against Castle's chest. He cupped the back of the boy's neck, his thumb bracing his head, and he bounced James very gently.

"How's this, huh? Feels good, gravity dragging at your body. Yeah, my man, wait till you jump out of a plane. Same awesome feeling, like you're getting right back where you belong."

James rubbed his face against Castle's shirt. He was a baby, just a baby, and he hadn't gotten a normal life, but what he had, whatever it was he'd had, he wanted it. Of course he did. It was comfortable.

Ben had wanted that, and Castle had too, following after his brothers. Just to keep what they had. Just to hang on to what was left of theirs. It had been so hard sometimes, and now they were adults and it was only harder to keep them together.

Alex wouldn't call security. When the medical team came, he'd say something to explain it, Castle was sure. Ben would be the one to explain, actually; Ben was the smarter one when it came to that kind of thing. But they wouldn't call security.

They were family. They had been forced to be family.

"I guess you and me too, huh?" he whispered to James. "You definitely didn't have a choice, but neither did Kate. Nor me. But - but I'm going to look out for you, okay? I'm going to look out for you, James. You and Wyatt. And Kate. Whatever that looks like."

He felt the tears now, the little damp patch on his shirt where James had given up. But his crying was silent.

Castle laid his cheek to the top of James's head and closed his eyes.

He wanted to cry too, but he had to get a handle on that feeling so that James would finally calm down.

This must be what a father did; keep it together so that everyone else could too.

\-----

Kate grunted and came awake to hands on her shoulders, pushing her back down. 

“It’s okay, darling. I’m the nurse. Just taking your vitals.”

Kate peeled back her eyelids and the room was dim, lit only by a small nightlight somewhere behind her head. A nurse in yellow scrubs and a washed out complexion was standing at her side, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Kate’s arm.

She was used to that.

Not used to the tears dripping back to her ears. She couldn’t seem to lift her hands to wipe them away, but the nurse just ignored them, a strange talent for giving privacy when there wasn’t really any to be had.

Kate just cried like it was leaking out of her.

After a minute, the nurse released the pressure on the cuff and unwrapped it, and Kate realized that one of the boys was asleep curled up against her hip. She let out a breath, patted his bottom where it stuck up. Wyatt. Messy, light brown hair. She had just figured out that he looked like Castle. Biology would out.

He snuffled in his sleep and she let out a breath, blinking clear of her tears.

The woman gestured to the side. “You sure got a sweet family here. This one hasn’t left your side.”

Kate licked her lips, throat dry, and turned her head. Castle was asleep in a chair, no doubt cramped and uncomfortable, and yet somehow passed out. James was in the circle of his arms, but the little boy was awake, his cheek mashed against Castle’s forearm, eyes open as he watched her so solemnly.

“Hey, baby,” she whispered, lifting her fingers from Wyatt to wave at James.

James reached out a little arm and opened and closed his fingers, waving back.

She laughed and turned her head, swiped at the last of the tears. 

“That’s good,” the nurse murmured softly. “That’s better. Take comfort in those boys.”

Kate sucked in a breath.

“Hurts at first, and you cry whenever you feel like it, darling. You hear me? Males - they don’t know nothing, and they’re gonna be sad when you’re sad, but you go ahead and cry. You lost a little one, and you’re gonna grieve.”

Oh, God.

Kate pressed her hand over her eyes, but the tears slipped out again as if the nurse’s words were permission. And she knew James was watching her, waiting on her to get it together, so she had to.

But her grief wasn’t the pregnancy she’d gotten rid of. No, her anguish spilled out over her mom, her dad. She didn’t even know what had happened to him, and worse, she realized she had been holding onto the idea that her dad would make everything better. That when she got back to him, life would be normal.

Nothing would be normal - everything was gone.

She choked on another sob, suffocated by it. The nurse slid an arm under Kate’s shoulders to tilt her forward and suddenly Kate could breathe again. But she was still crying. “Sor-sorry.”

“That’s all right, it’s all right. Don’t you worry about it.” The backs of the woman’s fingers brushed at Kate’s cheeks and her chest was warm against Kate’s ear. She felt smothered and comforted all at once. “That man looked so helpless when you came in. He loves you, you know. He’s gonna try his hardest and it won’t be enough - that’s just how it goes, darling. But you’ll make it. You will.”

“I want - want my mom,” she whispered, horrified even as she said it.

“Of course you do. Of course, that’s natural. We all want our mamas. Like these boys here want you. And you know, I can call her for you. Want me to-”

“She’s gone,” Kate choked out. “She’s - dead.”

“Oh, darling.” The nurse said nothing else, just rocked Kate back and forth while Kate tried to control the tears. But it was like she’d stored them up for three years and now that she’d started, she just couldn’t stop.

She just couldn’t stop.

And then she heard Castle, felt the nearness of his sleep-warm body crowding her other side. His arms wrapped around her, taking her from the nurse and into his strong embrace. “I got her. Thanks for this - Hey, Kate, I got you, love, I’m here. I got you.” She felt James crawling in her lap and Wyatt disturbed at her hip by Castle’s invasion, but she clung to the man covering her, hiding her, and slowly the terrible grief waned. Draining out of her.

And then she was just breathing. Breathing through it.

\-----

“You’re not supposed to pick up anything heavier than five pounds,” he said, not looking at her. Corralling the boys on her bed as they crawled and competed for her attention was damn near impossible.

She scowled. “But I wouldn’t be picking them up. Just holding them.”

“I think that counts, Kate.”

She had to admit her arms were limp, like noodles, her muscles useless. Her whole body ached, but most importantly - her breasts. At the facility, she’d been on a pump every four hours, but she’d only been able to feed the boys herself once a day. At night, right before bed. Apparently they hadn’t slept when they’d been fed the bottle.

That had been her guess anyway. Two weeks of nothing, not even seeing them in passing, two weeks of expressing milk and trying to push herself past it, and then she’d been escorted to their room, right to their little side by side isolettes. She’d never been there before.

She’d had to stand, but she’d held them, she had held them for as long as she could stand it. And then longer when Wyatt refused to let go. Holding them - that had been the one thing she could do.

“Kate,” he sighed, trying to wrangle a boy from her.

Well, regardless of how her body ached, her breasts were painfully full. “I need to nurse them,” she muttered finally. 

Castle’s jaw dropped.

“It builds up,” she growled, smacking his arm at the look on his face. 

“Fuck,” he grunted, glancing down at James. “I fed them cereal this morning.”

She laughed, caught by surprise at his disappointment, and he frowned fiercely, dragging James back to stay between them on the bed.

“Did they eat it?” she asked.

“Yeah, but - God, they must have been starving.”

“I think they must get some solids,” she whispered. She had no idea; she was guessing. But she had smelled bananas in Wyatt’s hair one night. And that baby cereal smell in their clothes, the stuff that looked like cream of wheat. “I think they were being weaned.”

“You - think?”

“Only once a night,” she mumbled, her face heating up. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been thoroughly exposed in every way possible these last three years. Why was Castle getting to her? “I nursed them at night, but during the day, I used a breast pump every four hours or so. I think it was. I had trouble keeping track? And I think he changed it up when - when I got too smart. Either way - I got the idea they were being weaned. He didn’t like their attachment to me.”

Castle swallowed hard. “Okay. Um, nursing. Let’s figure this out.”

She scowled at him. Wyatt was trying to climb her torso, but she had to keep putting him off, settling him at her side instead. The boys were quiet, but they were insistent, and it didn’t help that her breasts ached, her body ached, and this man was standing here like he had any input at all in what happened next.

“Okay, look, I can hold them,” he said quickly. “I’ll - um - get in behind you and hold them up to the trough, so to speak - do they go at the same time?”

She laughed, catching Wyatt before he could fall - the boy was apparently as stunned by her laughter as she was by Castle’s question. But she shook her head. “The trough? Thanks, so glamorous. And, no. One at a time.”

He winced. “That’s kind of personal, isn’t it? Sorry. I can do it, though. I’ll close my eyes or-”

“Oh, my God,” she snorted. “Castle, everyone has seen my breasts. Including Black-”

“God,” he whispered, turning his head.

She shut up, clenching her fist at Wyatt’s back. Stupid, stupid. Yeah, Castle knew trauma but he didn’t know her trauma. God, she just needed to keep her fucking mouth shut.

Wyatt wriggled in under her arm and hummed against her, and just the sound of him, the vibrations of his mouth made her nipples ache. 

Fuck.

“Okay,” she said. “Crawl in, Castle. Let’s do this. Crawl in behind me.”

Castle glanced at her, looking a wreck, a total mess. She ignored it and sat forward, nodding, keeping Wyatt a little away from her. She really needed to nurse them, and they had to be so hungry, the breakfast cereal notwithstanding.

Castle rubbed his chin. “Uh. Maybe - maybe that’s not a good idea.”

“It was your idea,” she reminded him. 

He shifted on his feet.

“Castle,” she insisted.

He let out a short breath and grabbed the railing of the hospital bed, jerked it up to detach it from the side. It went down smoothly after that, and James, little climber, made a mad dash for the edge. 

Kate caught his ankle, heart flipping. He turned back to look at her. “No,” she warned him.

He looked absolutely stunned. She felt bad - he’d never had her rebuke him - but she couldn’t have him falling from this height, not this; after everything, she wasn’t losing him to a stupid move over the edge.

James’s mouth turned down.

Castle crawled in behind her, his body bumping and nudging hers, all this space he took up. James was distracted from her reprimand by the big man trying to get in bed with them (gulp, Castle was in bed with her), and the boy crawled towards her now to watch. He and Wyatt both stopped monkeying around and sat very still, their little eyes matching sets as they stared.

Castle wasn’t having any easy time of it. He didn’t seem to know where to put his hands, how to shift her in the bed, where he should go or where she should be. She was still sitting forward, waiting for him to settle, but the boys - both of them were entranced.

“You have an audience,” she murmured, turning to look at him over her shoulder.

Wow, he was close. His face was right there, his body was right there, his knees pulled up and bracketing her hips. She could feel the space still left between them, and the heat from his body, but he wasn’t - wasn’t moving.

“Castle?”

“I - I have no excuse,” he whispered.

“What?”

“I should get out the bed and we can prop the boys up on pillows or-”

“On pillows? They’re not newborns. They squirm and play and-”

“Oh, God,” he whispered, his head dipping forward to put his chin on his chest.

“Get over it,” she growled, and dug her heels into the mattress to shove back into him.

He grunted when her ass hit his groin, but she had both boys crawling in for her, and she opened her arms to them. She could hear Castle was breathing hard behind her, and she moved to look at him and he cursed, clutching her arms and keeping her still.

“Just - don’t - fuck - don’t squirm, damn it.”

She froze. His grip was tight. Oh. She didn’t move. He was bruising her-

“Sorry,” he croaked, and let go of her.

Her shoulders were hunched, and Wyatt was mewling at her, and she slowly opened her eyes. Castle put his hands on his knees, one leg hanging off the side of the bed, the other alongside her own under the thin blanket.

“What was that about?” she said, still trying to slow her heartbeat. They could all hear it echoing in the room, bumping too fast.

“I scared you,” he said.

“I’m not scared of you,” she growled.

“I didn’t - mean to do that. Here. I won’t - touch you. Wyatt, come here, you’re the restless one.”

“James goes first,” she mumbled. Her heart was beginning to find its rhythm again, her shoulders eased. She was not afraid. She just - had a moment.

“But Wyatt looks like he’s gonna-”

“I mean, usually,” she said, shaking her head. Castle grunted and she realized her hair had caught his face; she laughed a little, even though it was shaky, and felt better for it.

“Well, for once, maybe James should wait his turn.” Castle reached forward and his chest pressed into her back, hard and strong. 

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. Wyatt was eagerly coming into Castle’s arms, into her own lap, while James sat on her knees, curious. She winked at him. “Never had help before, huh?”

Castle let out a little breath; he was struggling to orient Wyatt in her lap, and she had to help him. Kate slid her arm against his, just under his, and guided his hand to rest at Wyatt’s spine, letting his elbow cradle the boy’s head. He seemed to know where his other arm should go, moving to support Wyatt’s bottom.

Kate looked down, and her eyes met Wyatt’s. He lifted a hand and played with the ends of her hair. Her son.

She fumbled with the hospital tie at her shoulder, unable to look away from Wyatt, from the slow blink of his eyes and the way he chewed on his tongue, smiling up at her. The tie released and she tugged at the collar of the gown and it fell forward, for a moment covering Wyatt’s face.

He giggled. She grinned and folded the gown, his face appearing again. He smiled widely and hummed, pleased with her, and she cupped the side of his face, her thumb stroking his cheek.

He turned into her breast, opening his mouth, and found her immediately, and the intense relief as her milk let down made her sink back into the strong body at her back.

“God,” she whispered.

She took a slow breath in and then let it out, Wyatt nursing easily, now that he was first, not having to work for the last of it, no problems at all. She realized she was caressing the side of his face with two fingers, and she stopped, horrified, before she came back to herself and remembered she could.

So then she touched his cheek, his nose, his forehead, and he blinked against her touch. She eased a line down his nose just to watch him blink again, the slow droop of his lids. She traced the outside of his pursed mouth, caught the overflow of milk with her finger.

He was watching her. So intently. His hand came up and clutched her fingers; he’d never done that before.

She’d never touched him before.

He had Castle’s eyes.

Kate shifted to look over her shoulder at Castle and found that his head was turned, his eyes closed. Just as he’d promised her.

Her heart fluttered. She lifted her hand from where she had mirrored his hold on Wyatt, and she stroked her fingers along Castle’s forearm until his eyes startled open.

“Castle,” she whispered. “You can watch. I want you to watch. He’s your son too.”

\----- 

He wasn’t sure he was still breathing.

He was pretty sure he was supposed to be watching the miracle of breastfeeding but he hadn’t been able to get past the miracle of her breast, pale and milky white and round. Full. 

Holy shit.

Full. Her hair kept falling forward and obscuring the view, and then she lifted her other hand and twisted that hair into a knot, pushed it over one shoulder. So now he had the long slope of her delicate, strong shoulder and the sweep of her collarbone, before her breast rose, a firm globe - and full.

Full.

He could see the brown edge of her nipple where it disappeared, Wyatt’s mouth sucking furiously, the intense concentration. The little hand holding her hand, as if to keep her there, and then he did see the miracle, the rush of astonished disbelief as he watched his son at his mother’s breast.

Her thumb brushed at the corner of Wyatt’s mouth, catching a trickle of milk, and his heart began to thunder. He could barely hold himself still, his arms filled with the boy but her back resting against his chest, her body between his thighs, her ass snug against his groin.

He’d had an intense reaction to her whole everyone has seen my breasts and then she’d invited him into bed and he’d been - a little fucked up, he thought, by that. But the moment he’d widened his thighs and tried to figure out how to fit his body to hers, he’d been hopelessly aroused.

His erection was back again, with a vengeance. And she didn’t seem to know at all, oblivious, and he was gritting his teeth and reminding himself that his father had seen her breasts, had put her on some kind of scheduled pumping (what the fuck was a breast pump? that sounded like real and actual torture), but even that didn’t calm him down.

Did he have a fucking hard on for a girl? A girl who didn’t even know when she was practically sitting on an erection?

God, he was going to hell. 

She made that noise again, that satisfied, oh yes right there noise. For the baby, he reminded himself. For the small child he was holding in his arms, and because she was - full - and getting some relief.

Castle needed some relief here.

Her hospital gown had fallen in the back so that her bare shoulder was against his shirt. He shouldn’t; he shouldn’t. He was chanting it in his head, but he just - did. He dropped his chin to her shoulder and tucked his cheek against hers and - and watched Wyatt nurse.

She pressed her head against him, a good kind of pressure, like a nudge, and the hell of it was, he’d seen her do that to the boys.

She didn’t kiss them. She didn’t call herself mama. 

She nuzzled them, little touches she must have gotten away with, like she was doing to him right now. She whispered their names when she could hold them at night, and nurse them, and those were the names she’d given Castle from the beginning.

She was so young, and she was so strong, and she had found a way. Despite everything.

Wyatt was small, and making up for lost time, and he didn’t seem to want to let go. But he whined and came off her breast, the flush of dark nipple and the stain of milk, and Kate jostled Castle with her shoulder.

“Switch him,” she murmured. “That side’s empty.”

“What about James?” he whispered. But he was already moving to obey her, unwilling to go far, letting her guide his hands with her light, deft fingers on top of his.

“Fills up again. Slowly but he’ll have enough.”

Castle wanted to taste. It felt wrong, it felt exactly right; he wanted to know what it tasted like, he wanted to put his mouth there and have her hands cradle the side of his face and comb back through his hair.

“You okay?”

He nodded, even though she couldn’t see him, but he didn’t trust himself to speak. He arranged Wyatt against her other breast, trying to soothe the boy’s frustration. She was untying the hospital knot at her shoulder, and now the whole gown fell forward and both of her breasts were exposed and she didn’t seem to mind.

Her breasts were gorgeous. And he was cradling his son’s head as she guided the boy’s mouth to her nipple. Wyatt had already stopped mewling, but he snuffled into her chest as he suckled, like he could burrow into her, like he wanted her to know he hadn’t been happy.

Castle tried to keep the boy’s hips still, his legs from kicking. “Is he hurting you?”

“It doesn’t hurt at all,” she whispered.

He had a better angle with this side, and Wyatt’s head was in the crook of his elbow, the boy’s body along Castle’s forearm. He could grip the boy’s leg and hold him still, and his other hand was free. So Castle spread his palm along her stomach, brushing his thumb just under her breast.

“I meant here,” he murmured. “He’s squirming.”

“Oh.” She sounded breathless. Was she - did she feel this too? Maybe it was just the relief of nursing.

“Does it hurt?”

“It aches a little,” she said. Her fingers drifted away from Wyatt and touched the back of his hand, lightly. “But - feels good, the heat of your hand.”

He turned his head into her neck, feeling overwhelmed, entirely entirely overwhelmed. This wasn’t a game, this was real, so very real, and she was light and strong and stroking her fingers over his own.

His mouth was against her shoulder. He was breathing hard and she could feel it, she had to feel it, the way he struggled to control himself. She just kept tracing designs over the back of his hand. 

He angled his head into her and realized she was gazing down at Wyatt.

Of course she was. She’d been on a pump and only allowed to nurse them at night, probably on a strict schedule, an exact amount of minutes parceled out just like Castle and his brothers had gotten for each item on the calendar.

Right.

She wasn’t in this with him.

He was a mess, and his father was dead, and she had saved these boys that happened to be his, and he’d been brainwashed since he was three years old, and she wasn’t in this with him.

He lifted his head from her shoulder and tried to ease away from the alluring heat of her body.

But she came with him as he sat back against the raised mattress. She came with him and nestled her head into the curve of his neck and still she ran her fingers over his hand on her stomach while he held Wyatt easily.

Her breasts were so beautiful.

\-----

"He fell asleep," Castle whispered. 

Her skin rippled at the touch of his breath along her neck and she turned slowly to look at him. He was smiling, he looked - in awe, she thought. That's what it was. He was a little overwhelmed.

Well, she was too. "Wyatt usually does," she smiled back. She felt so proud that she knew that; this one thing, this one small thing: she actually knew exactly what happened after Wyatt nursed.

"He looks kinda cute."

She grinned. "He looks like you."

His face bloomed with utter delight. She flushed, heat suffusing her for having said it, and what it implied, and he kissed her reddened cheek. "I think you just called me cute."

"You called yourself cute," she muttered shrugging her shoulder to get him off of her.

Stop kissing her.

He'd kissed her a few times, and there had been something so erotic about it, his mouth against her neck while the boy nursed. Her stomach fluttered again and she swallowed roughly. "Um, now we have to switch. I don't think James will wait."

"What do I do with this one?"

She laughed a little, feeling breathless all over again, and she glanced down to the boy in his arms, heavy in her own lap. "Put him somewhere and let him sleep, I guess. Babies have naps, don't they?"

"Do they?"

"Yeah. What time is it?"

"Around one or so," he said. "Do they sleep like this in the middle of the day?"

"Isn't that what a nap is?" she said. "I'm pretty sure they do."

"They seem kind of old."

"Castle, I have no fucking clue. Is that what you want to hear? I'm guessing. I see them at night, if I'm good, if he's not fucking with me. So I don't know."

He was very still behind her.

She let out a breath, fighting the urge to apologize. She was so done with apologizing. She was second rate, she wasn't their mother, she knew that. She knew that. But she had gotten them all out of there; she had done that, she had made it possible. And if the fucking abortion was going to mean anything at all, it meant she'd gotten them free.

Free to fucking nap in the middle of the day if that's what they wanted to do.

She could hear the heart monitor telling on her, tattle-tale, letting Castle know exactly how worked up she was.

He was holding himself stiffly away from her now, and yet his arms were around her as he held Wyatt, so very still, so carefully not disturbing him.

And then she felt his body contracting with power and he stood up.

In the bed. Right on the mattress. He had his shoes off, of course, but he was standing up in the hospital bed. He had lifted Wyatt right over her head and now he was holding the boy in one arm and standing there like some kind of - of hero.

"Stay right there," he said. "Draw your legs up?"

She was ridiculously grateful it was spoken like a question, but she obeyed, pulling her knees into her chest. He touched the top of her head to keep her there, or maybe just to know where she was, and he stepped over her and avoided the wide-eyed James.

"He's like a giant, isn't he?" she murmured. James didn't even look at her; he stared up at the man towering above them.

Castle's hand left her head, and then she glanced up and saw how he cradled the back of Wyatt's neck, bracing him, and that was her first clue.

Castle half-squatted and then jumped off the bed and landed on his feet, letting his knees bend to absorb the impact.

Kate's jaw dropped.

Castle turned around and Wyatt was blissfully asleep, mouth open, not even disturbed.

"Holy crap," she whispered.

He glanced at her, but he didn't seem to realize what he'd done or that it was extremely out of the ordinary. (What was ordinary for her these days?) He just headed for the free bed past the drawn back curtain, and he laid Wyatt up near the head. "You think he'll roll off?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "We found James in his brother's bed, not the other way around, so-"

"Yeah, but - does he move in his sleep? Will he fall off?”

She gritted her teeth and tried to not let it hurt so much, not having answers. "I don't know."

"What should I do?" he whispered.

She turned to look at him, and she realized that he didn't have answers either. And he had no experience with not having answers, so he talked out loud and kept talking. He didn't mean to make her feel like shit.

"I don't know," she said.

"I don't think he'd like the floor," Castle answered her, looking helpless. "The railings and the wall at the head will keep him caged on three sides. Maybe that's enough."

"Okay," she said. She thought he was asking her permission. She had never been asked permission for anything; it hit her very suddenly how she was responsible for these boys. She was responsible. He was asking her how to treat them.

Castle backed away slowly, but Wyatt didn't wake up. When he turned back to her, he gave a triumphant little grin, looking so pleased with himself. "Hey, we're figuring it out. It's not so bad, right?"

She let out a little breath. James was already trying to crawl on her, his body moving to get close. "Not so bad," she echoed softly, trying to smile back.

He was so proud. He beamed at her (like Wyatt beamed) and then he stepped onto the chair pulled up beside the hospital bed and climbed right back into his place behind her. Like it was the easiest thing in the world, using furniture as his jungle gym, getting exactly where he needed to go.

He did, of course. He always got where he needed to go.

She ought to remember that.

It went smoother with James. All the kinks had been worked out, the awkwardness and positioning, and her breasts were bare already for the boy. James didn't even let Castle get him situated before he was latching on, sucking greedily and clutching at her breast with both hands, little nails sharp against her skin.

She loved that feeling. She could let herself admit it now, how very much she loved feeling these babies need her.

Castle leaned in, watching over her shoulder, and then he flexed his arms and tugged, pulling her back against his chest as he sank to the raised head of the bed.

She let herself go, mostly because it felt so nice, leaning against his hard and wide chest - he was very strong, and very big, and he felt like he couldn't possibly be moved if he didn't want to be. She could be safe here, like this, because he was her shield. She was a weapon on her own, but that hadn't done her much good in the facility when that door had opened and she’d been vulnerable. She had killed Black and that was powerful, but she had needed Castle to get her out of there alive.

He was wrapped around her. It only took one arm to hold the boy, so his free hand spread across her belly, the heat of him heavy and seeping down into her womb. She found herself stroking his forearm, the soft hair along his strong muscle, and stroking James's forehead as well, in time, together, reveling in the ability to touch.

To be touched.

James didn't seem willing to slacken his pace, so intent or so hungry, and she softly tugged on his ear. "Won't take it away from you," she promised. "Not anymore. You can take as long as you like."

Castle sighed behind her, and his forehead rested against the back of her head. "You're making my heart hurt," he whispered.

She blinked. James flared his fingers against her breast. She cautiously lifted a hand to Castle, skimming the side of his head until she found his ear. She rubbed at that soft pink shell, and then back to his neck.

"I don't mean to," she said quietly.

"It just does, around you," he mumbled. "I don't know what I'm doing. I can't seem to let you go."

Her heart monitor beeped funny, and she figured that was her. She felt a little funny too, and she could feel the tug on her breast where her lifted arm was pulling against James's mouth. She slowly dropped her hand back to James, smoothed his wrinkled, troubled brow.

"It's okay," she said softly. "He's okay. We're all gonna be okay, James."

"Am I making him sad?" he husked, his face still buried in her hair.

"He seems to think there's cause for concern, but he's used to nursing right through it."

"Oh, God," he muttered. "That's terrible. Three years of this."

"No," she said. "Only a year and a half. Before that I didn't have them."

Castle gave an awful noise - like a sob. His arms squeezed in and caught her in a kind of embrace. "You had no one."

Her mouth twisted. "I still have no one." Her father was dead; her dad was simply gone.

"You have me," he said. So small, his voice was so small and - and forlorn. "I know it's not the same. I'm sorry. I wish I could make you feel safe, make you feel happy. I just - I want to make you happy."

And now she was crying again.

\-----

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he whispered, trying to catch her tears before they could drip off her chin and land on the boy. "I didn't mean to make you sad."

"I'm not," she muttered at him, still half-sobbing. She was jostling James, but the boy looked more concerned for her than for his hunger. Castle did his best to keep the baby close, but when James saw that Kate had turned her head away from him, he gave a little cry.

Kate jerked her face back to him and James mewled up at her. Those strange little sounds to express how distraught he was. She was wrapping her arms around Castle's and trying to catch James up against her, shushing him even as she cried.

Castle felt like total shit. He had been so damn selfish, wanting her to like him, wanting her, and she was crying and James was upset too. He shifted so that he could get a hand between her and the boy and he touched the side of James's face, at his cheek like she'd done to Wyatt, and he tried really hard to keep that sense of I've got this, I've got this at the forefront of his thoughts.

I can take care of her.

It seemed to work. James gave a little sigh and latched on again, and Castle's thumb rested against Kate's breast as his fingers held James's head steady. He stroked James's cheek to settle him, figuring he ought to let Kate cry if she felt bad, but he could do this. He could get this done.

The boy was hungry and he'd been fed cereal by his incompetent father, and so Castle could at least fix this. He could fix this. And he knew from experience with Colin that being upset was going to overwhelm James pretty fast if he didn't get someone emotionally stable touching him and overriding the chaos.

Castle could make himself stable. He'd always been able to do that. Colin used to say, when he was littler, I just rest here, Rick.

Let James rest here.

Kate gave a juddering sigh, a kind of hitch to her breath that he thought meant she was calming down as well. He stroked James's cheek and around his chin and neck, and he focused on doing the one thing he could do right now.

Kate shuddered. Her fingers touched his forearm, curled.

Castle realized, too late, God, too late - he was stroking her breast with his thumb. He hadn't meant to. He really hadn't, even though he had wanted to touch her so badly, but this was-

"I'm not sad," she said softly. She lifted her fingers from his arm and swiped at her eyes, and then she dropped her hand back to his arm and he could feel the wet of her tears. "I'm just stupid."

"You're not stupid," he protested. "You can be sad-"

"I'm not sad, I'm grateful," she growled. She turned and pressed her forehead in against his neck, and he had to shift James carefully, but fuck, he still had his thumb on her breast.

"Grate-grateful? For what?"

"That you're here," she moaned.

"Oh." His heart flipped. He dropped his head down to put his nose to her hair, raised his hand from her breast to cup the side of her face. "Oh, you are. I'm - that makes me really happy."

She laughed, kind of desperate, really kind of awful, and he fisted her hair in his hand. 

There were a lot of words crowding his mouth that he wanted to say, but he just - they all felt really overwhelming and ridiculous and she was leaning into him, and he was holding her baby, and he'd been stroking her breast - fuck, he kind of still was - and the words just died completely.

He should move his hand but it would jostle James, and so he didn't. He didn't move his hand; he stroked the top of her breast with his thumb, acting as guide to the boy's intent nursing, and he let himself feel how good it was, how good it felt to have her half curled into him and still crying a little but - but needing him, wanting him there.

Wanting him there. That was more than - more than needing. Need couldn't be helped but want was purely-

He just wanted to touch her, to make her happy; he wanted to give her those things that had been taken away from her for three years, and it felt impossible to even make a dent, and yet he still wanted to try. 

He stroked his free hand in her hair, petting and combing it down, around her ear, persistent and soothing as they sat there, as she tried not to cry. She was taking deeper breaths now and he could hear the bump and stutter of the heart monitor beginning to steady out. She tilted her head down and he knew she was watching James, soaking up the way he looked and how he nursed and the feeling of it. Castle wasn't Colin, but he could feel that much, feel her absorbing emotion like a sponge. 

And James, in his own way, giving it back to her. James who was like Colin, most likely, and who could be caught up in the maelstrom of strong feelings, and who might be able to ease those around him. 

Kate's hand came to cover his own at James's head, and her fingers fit into the spaces between his. Her thumb rode his thumb as he still stroked softly against the top of her breast and his body was bursting inside, like exploding water balloons drenching his guts with all of this terrible, painful arousal.

He set his chin to the top of her head and just tried to breathe, but the feeling of her hand on top of his, guiding his, or maybe just allowing, made him reckless.

He loosened his fingers from where he cradled James's head, but he could angle his knee across her thigh and give the boy support that way. She made a noise, not understanding his movement away from her, but he was still there, he wasn't going anywhere. He could prop up the boy with just the angle of his knee, and he could feel the top of her thigh at his inside thigh, but her hand still rest heavily over his own.

He pressed his cheek to the side of her face, closed his eyes because he didn't have the courage, the guts, to do what he ought to do, but he was going to do what he wanted to anyway because he needed and he wanted her. 

Castle curled his fingers with hers on top of his, squeezing those slight, strong digits where they laced between his own, and then he brushed the backs of their fingers over her breast. 

She sucked in a ragged breath and went still.

He unfurled their fingers, not even pretending it was only for the boy, and he lightly touched his fingertips to the slope of her breast. Lightly, so lightly, making a soft and slow figure eight over the exposed, creamy skin. 

He lowered his chin and touched his cheek to hers, pressing into her in that same nudge she had for the boys, and had given him in return. He skimmed their fingers across the downslope of her nursing breast, along her sternum, and then along the high rise of her other breast.

Kate breathed in, full and deep a breath so that her chest expanded into their combined touch. He waited there, paused at the top of her breast, avoiding her nipple, avoiding the heavy swell below, his thumb stroking her skin high at her chest as she breathed.

He didn't know what came next. He didn't think anything should come next. He was entirely content for this, and grateful that she wanted it too, or allowed it, and he hoped to hell she wasn't feeling put upon or - fuck - fuck - forced to because he-

She lifted her arm and brought his hand to her lips. His heart thundered so hard he missed whatever it was she whispered against his skin, but he felt the kiss she placed at his palm. Warm, soft, lingering.

He was drowning in her.

\-----


	5. Chapter 5

She felt electric.

All of her body, electric and shivering with current.

His hand curled at her jaw, the heel of his palm at her lips.

She had no idea what she was doing. She just - wanted. Wanted things, wanted to not feel so inadequate and alone, wanted his touch against her skin and the way he breathed - choppy and stilted like he couldn't hang on to anything.

Wanted this jolt of feeling that upset her balance and bubbled her blood and made her heart rate trip over itself, echoing in the room.

And then James popped off her nipple with a little sigh, and a smack of his lips, and Castle laughed softly against her ear. 

It was like they both knew and weren't saying, but the boy's interruption was a way to redirect the channel, divert the waters if she needed to, if he did, and they both shifted into movement.

"Enough?" Castle said from her shoulder. She was entirely loath to leave the amazing current riding between them, so she shook her head.

"Switch," she told him, and she heard it in her voice, how this was affecting her deeply.

But Castle eased his leg off of hers and she swallowed a sigh, and his hands were deftly cradling the baby and turning him, positioning him at her other breast. Sleepy boy, and he seemed to be struggling to stay awake, but she knew he was hungry, and half-fed was no good, especially for the way she ached all over now - God, she ached, she ached so deeply - and he ought to nurse.

She made a little noise, maybe, or she shifted somehow, and Castle took charge.

With the boy in the crook of his arm, Castle lifted his other hand and cupped her breast, her nipple between his fingers, and he teased the edge of James's mouth until the baby startled and woke and then latched on. God, his hand felt good, warm and broad and confident even when he'd been so delicate and hesitant. It didn't seem possible, the way he touched her, and she was sure she was going to hate herself for it later, but she couldn't not have it.

When James was settled, Castle withdrew his hand, but slowly, as if reluctant, and she wondered if it would be really stupid to say, just keep doing that. Or if people did that at all. She was nursing a baby, for fuck's sake, maybe she shouldn't be doing this at all, not feeling it like she was. How intense everything was.

He was being so kind. And no one had been even considerate of her, let alone kind. She knew that was all it was; she knew she was headed for trouble, but hell, bring on the trouble. When had she last been able to get into trouble like this? This was nothing. She'd been three years locked up and farmed like a thoroughbred and so fuck, she could entirely do this.

His hand rested on her breast, high, so that his fingers brushed along her clavicle.

And in case he wondered, in case he was still that forlorn little boy whispering that he just wanted to make her happy, she turned her head and caught his hand with her own, keeping him there. "I liked that," she said, feeling strong and bold and good for once.

"Yeah," he breathed. Like agreement. His eyes traced over her face and met her gaze. His fingers moved under her hand. "Me too."

She was trying really hard not to smile, trying so hard to just let him see it, what it was crackling through her body like electricity.

"Hands are warm," she told him, unable to put words on it, exactly everything.

"If it's just because you're cold, Kate-"

"Oh, no," she said, shaking her head. "But I have been - had been cold."

Subtext, God it was all riddles, but it was what she could force out of herself after so long closed up tight like a fist.

"I think... me too," he murmured. His nose brushed hers, and his mouth opened, breathing humid air against her lips. She could hear that stupid heart monitor but she could feel his heart too, pounding so hard against her shoulder and her back where they pressed together.

He wasn't kissing her. He was nuzzling his nose against hers, and his mouth was brushing her cheekbone, her eyelid, skirting everything. 

The baby was pulling at her nipple, the milk flooding his mouth from her breast so that she felt the warmth of it around her skin, and then his mouth, this man's mouth against her cheek, the corner of her eye, like exploring, like discovery. It was strange and tangled up, but he was their father, he was the father of her children, and that shot through her like an arrow.

Castle dragged his hand across her collarbones and down to her abandoned breast. She went still, trembling as the breath left her, until his hand cupped the swell of her breast and held her, taking its weight, warm and all-encompassing around her.

She breathed in slowly and pressed her cheek against his, harder, feeling the bone, feeling the width of his palm and the weight of her own breast, and the slow drag of his thumb against the outside edge of her areola.

It was erotic.

She wanted him.

She didn't know what to do with him.

\-----

And now James was asleep.

He didn’t want her to move; he was afraid of what happened next, when they went on, when the mood shifted. He held her breast in one hand and the baby in the other, and she breathed quickly, her mouth along his jaw, their noses nudging.

He was, at least, trying to keep his hips away from her ass. He was trying to be chaste. Hell, this wasn’t chaste at all, but somehow it was, it was. He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t want her to feel - presumed upon.

She took a deeper lungful of air and her breast filled his hand. He thumbed over her nipple, making her shiver, her body vibrating right against him.

“He’s asleep,” she said, prompting.

He closed his eyes, crushingly disappointed by the reminder.

“Do that again,” she murmured.

His thumb twitched at her nipple and she jerked, moving into him with something like a laugh. “That too,” she hummed. “But I meant - where you just stood up with the boy.”

He nudged his face down against hers. “You liked that?”

“Yeah,” she said, almost soundlessly, and he realized that she’d been turning tighter and tighter into him so that she was practically straddling his lap. Would have been if not for the baby across her thighs and supported by his arm.

“Yeah?”

“Really - um - impressive.”

He grinned, feeling a little more encouraged by that, and she knocked her chin against his jaw as if to get him moving. 

“Well, all right then,” he said softly. Kate shifted back - actually forward, leaning away so that he could get his feet pulled in under him. He balanced just right and then rose straight up, keeping the boy away until he cleared Kate’s body.

James was warm and heavy with sleep, his lips stained white with breastmilk in the corners. Kate had her knees up now to give him room to step over her, and once more he touched the top of her head to make sure he didn’t clip her by accident.

Castle glanced down at her from where he stood so far above, and she lifted her face to him, a secret smile on her lips.

He really liked making her smile. Fuck, that wasn’t strong enough a word for the feeling that rose in him at that look on her face.

Castle braced James’s neck with his hand and then he crouched and jumped, landing easily on the balls of his feet, knees bent to absorb the impact. James startled only a little, but when Castle pulled him in against his chest, the boy settled down again.

He liked that too - being able to comfort the boy. Wyatt hadn’t yet gotten used to him, but James could turn to Castle and not put that extra strain on Kate. 

“Stop staring at him like a fool,” she said, amusement in her voice. “Put him down with Wyatt.”

He flashed her a grin; he had to admit that he’d been staring at James. “I’m their dad.”

Her face went blank.

Castle had ruined the mood. Damn it. “I mean - I - didn’t think I’d be any good for them at all. I don’t know a thing about it. But he’s asleep in my arms.”

“Yeah,” she said, rather colorlessly.

He swallowed and glanced down at the boy. He wanted to reassure her that he’d never take them away from her, but he didn’t see how she could possibly trust him or anyone at all. 

Instead of trying, he walked James over to the empty hospital bed and placed the boy near the head, higher than Wyatt who hadn’t rolled from his spot yet, just in case James was the one who moved in his sleep. Now he had his brother to pen him in.

Castle smoothed down James’s hair; he could see now that it was a little darker than Wyatt’s, as dark as Kate’s. Both boys had thin, serious faces, but James was slightly sturdier, like his gross motor skills were better developed. He was still a narrow boy; it was just in comparison with Wyatt, really.

Which meant Wyatt was extremely small, looking at him in the wide bed. His fingers were long, his limbs long as well, but he looked almost painful in his skinniness.

Of course, so did Kate.

Castle turned his head back to look at her and she was studying him, her eyes roving over his back. She was still topless, the hospital gown pooled around her hips, and her breasts were pale moons, waning moons. Her nipples were thick, engorged by the boys’ mouths, and it shouldn’t be so erotic, but it was. 

Fuck, it really was. He wanted to put his mouth on her.

He stepped towards her bed, unsure where to look, what he was allowed now that they didn’t have the excuse of the boys.

Kate held out her hand to him, fingers wriggling, and he took it. She tilted her head, a flickering frown, and tugged on him.

She hadn’t tied off her hospital gown again. That had to mean something.

He laid his free hand where her thigh rose under the blanket, rubbed slowly. She squeezed his fingers and tugged on him again, but her eyes were clouded and he was suddenly certain she wouldn’t ask again.

He made a fist in the mattress and balanced himself close to her; she gave a sharp breath but didn’t move away, her eyes dark on his face. He crawled into bed behind her once more, taking time to adjust, trying to keep a handle on his arousal.

When he had settled, she pulled up her knee and it dug into his inside thigh as she sat perpendicular to him. Her breasts were still unbound before him, and he couldn’t help the way his eyes fell to their glowing mounds.

She took his hand and played with his fingers in her lap, stroking along his palm, around to his knuckles, down to his fingertips.

She was nervous. She didn’t know where to start to reclaim that feeling.

And that helped. He was nervous too, he realized, and he’d never been nervous with a woman before. 

Of course, no woman had ever made feel inside out like this.

He lifted his hand, both of hers still gripping him, and he touched two fingers to her sternum. Her heart kicked up hard, beep-beeping in the room, and he chuckled, tapping his fingers to its rhythm. She snorted and rolled her eyes, but her heart was still fast.

And they all knew it. 

He took one of her hands and placed it against his own chest. “Only fair,” he murmured. 

Her eyes shot up to his. He knew she could feel the way his pulse was sky-rocketing, matching her own in its fierceness. Her face went soft, that grateful look, and he stroked his fingers at her sternum again.

She mirrored his movement, her own fingers between his pecs. And then something devilish passed over her face and she spread her hand out and found his flat nipple, scratched at him.

Castle grunted, thighs tensing as his cock pulsed in response. She smiled and met his eyes again, so happy with herself, and Castle couldn’t keep to this pace. He reached out both hands and gripped her hips, right at the place where her legs bent, and he dragged her into him.

Her bare breasts brushed his shirt; he wished like hell he’d taken it off. Castle palmed her back and kept her between his legs, both of his feet dangling off either edge of the bed. She was cross-legged so her knees dug into into his inside thighs, and he found it impossible that she hadn’t noticed his erection.

She scraped the back of her fingers against his pec again, catching his nipple so that he grunted.

“Not fair,” she murmured. Before he could ask what, she had stolen up under his shirt with her hot hand, dragging her nails up to his bare nipple.

Castle growled and gripped her bent legs, thumbs pressing maybe too hard into her inside thighs. He could feel the flex of her muscle there, so close to her center, but she was fondling his chest with her whole hand.

Her palm was warm, though the tips of her fingers were cool. She rubbed against his nipple and then traced the shape of his muscle with her thumb. His whole body broke out into goose bumps, the intensity of the sensation nearly too much for him.

Kate shifted and one of her legs unbent and then hooked around his waist. She tightened her calf at his back and then dragged herself right into his groin.

Castle groaned, his head dropping back.

“Oh,” she whispered.

He caught her wrist and kept her hand there on his chest, her fingers stroking his pec, and he tried to recover his control.

“Are - you...”

He opened his eyes and caught her flushed face. She was biting her bottom lip.

“Am I,” he growled. He had no thought in his head at all when he dragged her hand out from under his shirt - and down to his crotch.

She stiffened.

He did too. Impossibly hard. Her mouth dropped open, but he could not move. Couldn’t bear to not have her hand pressed against him. But he should let go; he shouldn’t force her to touch-

Her fingers brushed lightly across his groin.

He moaned, eyes slamming shut. Her touch teased along the line of his shaft, their bodies angled together by the strong clutch of her leg around his waist, and he could feel the weight of her leaning into him.

He sucked in a breath that tasted like her and suddenly she was right there, a subtle pressure on his crotch where she was balancing against him, and her mouth dusted his cheek.

“Why haven’t you kissed me?” she whispered.

His eyes snapped open. Hers were dark but filled with gold, like mica, flaking metallic layers. He released her hand - it stayed, unquestionably it stayed - and he cupped the side of her face. “Why haven’t you?”

Her smile grew under his fingers. Those eyes, deadly, layered eyes, those secrets she kept to herself. “Hm, like that, is it?”

“Of course,” he murmured, entranced by the way she was tracing his lips with her gaze. Studying.

She sat back, only a little, but no longer in kissing distance. Her hand was lightly petting his cock through the material of his pants in a way that drove him insane.

“Kate?” he growled.

“If that’s how it is, think I’ll bide my time. Surprise you.”  
He grunted and she smiled slyly, a look that made his cock jump under her hand.

“It’s like that, is it?” he mumbled.

She grinned even wider, and her thumb somehow managed to bump the head of his cock. Excruciating, terrible, amazing eroticism.

“It’s like that,” she whispered.

“I’m very good at feigning surprise,” he hinted.

She laughed, and it was light, a little breathless, but it was there.

Oh, God, he was in love with her, wasn’t he?

\-----

He was really aroused. She could feel him under her hand, the outline of his - his cock. Was that the word she should use? Dick sounded sarcastic, and his name was Richard, so that felt wrong. And penis was just stupid, like what you called a limp thing that wouldn’t work.

But this worked. Oh, yes. She wanted to call it a cock. Felt powerful.

She wanted to feel it, the skin over the steel; she wanted to look at it.

But she didn’t know if that was a good idea because then what?

They were in a hospital and the boys were in the next bed and it wasn’t like she could have him put it in her, not with the - the D&C and the stitches and...

God, she was a mess. What the fuck was she doing?

“No, don’t,” he whispered.

She realized she was chewing on her bottom lip. She’d managed to hide all of her tells for three years and yet now she was coming unraveled? For him?

“Don’t. Just - be here with me.”

She nodded, but easier said than done. She’d claimed ground for herself today, because touching his cock (oh, God, she really loved calling it that) meant something for power and self-possession. 

Or maybe just possession. She had him at her mercy, didn’t she?

But she felt like maybe she should say - something. What her limitations were right now. “I’m - um - you know I’m on pelvic rest for six weeks.”

“Eight weeks,” he said sternly, frowning at her.

“She said six to-”

“Eight weeks,” he put in. “Don’t go massaging the details, Beckett.”

Beckett? She pressed her lips together and dropped her eyes, but hell, she was looking at his crotch. She wanted to take it out.

That really wasn’t appropriate, was it? Not in a hospital room where they’d come in to check her vitals in another few hours.

“I really could use some fucking privacy,” she muttered.

He startled and shifted a knee like he might leave, and then she realized he was just as uncertain and awkward as she was.

“I meant for - this,” she said, squeezing his - his cock. 

Oh, God. She was cupping his erection in her hand and he was looking at her with those heavy eyes, intent eyes. And she knew she was traumatized, she knew she’d been locked away in a cage for three years and fucked over badly - scientifically, medically - and she was still thick with grief, but it felt so good to have this moment.

To be here with him.

“This,” he said gravely, “has had more than enough private time with you.”

She actually laughed, more surprised than truly amused, and it kind of spilled all the tension out of her body. She brushed her hand across him and then moved it to safety at his hip, tucking under his shirt to hit bare skin.

“Let me know when you’d like some more private time,” she murmured. She was trying to be sexy but she was afraid it had come off rather - pathetic. Not funny, that was for sure.

“Give me a second to calm down here,” he said. His hand twitched at her thigh and she realized he meant that. He actually meant that he was close to - to coming. Right here sitting with her in the bed.

She was astonished.

“Don’t look at me like that. I usually have much more control than this. It’s demoralizing.”

She laughed, caught off guard. “I - would it be awful if I said that was really moralizing for me?”

He grinned back. “Naw, guess not.”

His hands flipped on her thighs and caught her elbows, dragged her arms down until he could take her hands. He squeezed her fingers, and then he let go of her entirely. And now they were just sitting face to face and she was reminded of the ache between her legs - not sexy at all - and the tender feeling in her womb.

“You okay?” he said. Now his hands were on her knees. Maybe he was trying to be polite. Or - or nice to her, respectful or something. 

Oh, or - or he was trying to get control of himself. “Is it uncomfortable?” she asked.

He opened his mouth like he was going to ask what and then his face suffused bright red. She found him kind of adorable when he was flustered.

“My fucking cock?” he muttered. “Yes. It’s seriously uncomfortable, and you talking about it doesn’t exactly help.”

“Cock,” she smiled. “I like that.”

“Well, just wait until you meet it.”

She laughed, sharply, not hysterical, no, not, but - um - a little bit maybe. She was going to meet his cock.

“Not like that,” he growled. And then he flushed again. “I meant - an introduction is in order before I just barge my way inside.”

She was really laughing now, a cartoon picture of a cock in a hat and taking off his coat, making himself comfortable inside her womb. Inside her sex. Snug and tight.

And now she wasn’t laughing, but breathless, and her heart monitor telling on her so totally that Castle smirked.

“Shut up,” she muttered. “You’re putting pictures in my head.”

“Oh, good. It’s not just me.”

She cautiously laid her hand over his on her knee. “It’s not just you.”

That heavy, slack look had come back in his face. His eyes were a clouded blue, like he was thinking a million things. All about her. Imagining things. She wanted to know what they were.

She swayed towards him and his hands lifted, caught her face, cradling her. The clouds dissipated. “You look like you’re gonna fall over,” he murmured.

No, she wanted to cry. But maybe, yes, actually, she might. “You could... crawl in-”

“Yeah,” he said, quickly, eager.

Crawl in behind her, she’d been about to say, but instead he shifted to one side and drew his legs under the blanket, tugging on the front of her hospital gown to nudge her down with him.

Her breasts were bare. She’d - forgotten. So much of her life these last three years had just been - ignoring it, putting it out of her mind - but the way he looked at her, she was distinctly aware of her breasts.

She laid down beside him, on her side so that she could see his face, and they were close, very close. His hand came to her shoulder and then skimmed across the tops of her breasts, and she sucked in a ragged breath, feeling it down to her toes.

“Don’t get too excited,” he murmured, “you’re on pelvic rest.”

She opened her eyes. “I - um. Okay. That’s - added information.”

“Added infor-... fuck.” He groaned and his forehead crashed down into hers, his hand heavy on her breast. “Right. An orgasm is not pelvic rest, Kate.”

“Darn.”

He gave a choked laugh and squeezed her breast as if in retaliation, and oh, she liked that. She really did. 

She rubbed her thumb along his hip. “Can do a lot - a lot without violating that rule.”

“Really? Stronger man than I.”

“If you think that, you’re really messed up,” she murmured. She could totally see the confusion swamp his eyes; he was so hung up on her that he hadn’t even heard what he’d said. “Stronger man?”

“Oh. Hell, you’re very woman. Your breasts are enthralling - I can’t seem to help myself.”

She wormed her way closer, sliding her arm around his waist as she tried to shorten the distance between them. He cupped the back of her shoulder and then pressed her slowly down to his chest, her naked breasts to the cotton of his shirt, the heat of him beneath that.

“This good?” he said softly. 

“Trying to hide my breasts?”

“No, love, want to feel them right here. Heart to heart.”

She blinked slowly and laid her cheek against the top of his shoulder. She could feel his heartbeat knocking against her own. She could also feel her raw nipples scratch at the material of his shirt. 

His palm was broad and heavy at her back, and he was combing his free hand through her hair.

He was trying to settle her. Or himself. It wasn’t the eroticism of before.

She was a little disappointed. A lot, actually.

“So when are you going to introduce me?” she mumbled.

Castle growled, gripping her shoulder and the back of her neck, and she was forcibly pressed against him.

But it was hot, the way he pulled her down to him. 

“Tonight,” he rumbled. “Tonight. When we - can get some privacy.”

Her heart thumped fast again, but Castle reached down and caught the collar of her hospital gown and pulled it up over her back. He draped the ties at her shoulders, fingered her collar bone before stroking his thumb along her jaw.

She knew he was about to kiss her. He was going to do it first.

And then the hospital door clicked open and a nurse came bustling through, scrubs rubbing together, shoes squeaking on the tile floor.

Kate slammed her eyes shut and feigned sleep.

She was entirely too flustered to make bland smalltalk with the nurse.

\-----

Castle braced himself to confront the nurse, seeing as how Beckett had totally copped out on him. She was faking it against his chest, pretty good job too, and he angled his arm across her back to keep her down.

Let her hide, if she couldn't lie convincingly.

"How's she doing this afternoon?" the nurse said quietly, giving him a distracted smile as she opened the chart. She was already shifting to check the heart monitor, not even looking at them.

"Okay," he said, keeping his voice low. "Awake for a few hours."

"There's the dinner menu on the counter," the nurse told him. "She can pick semi-solids. We have one more bag of antibiotics." And then she paused, and Castle realized she'd seen the boys in the other bed; a frown creased her forehead.

"I'll - move them somewhere," he said quickly, "if we can't use the bed-"

"No, it's fine," the nurse softened. Her eyes came back to him, actually taking him in, which he wasn't sure he wanted. She skirted her gaze over Kate and then back to the boys. "It's fine. But - well, they won't roll off? It's awfully high off the ground."

He felt Kate stir and he pressed his forearm into her spine, keeping her down. "No. They're heavy sleepers. They'll be fine."

But the nurse had drifted over. She laid a hand on the mattress and then turned back to him. "There's an extra pillow under here in the storage basket. I can put it at the railings to block them in?"

She seemed determined to help, as if he, being a man, had no idea how to take care of his sons. 

Fuck, he really didn't. He was faking it. "Sure. Thanks."

"No problem. I'll try to avoid assigning incoming patients for this room - long as I can. But-"

"We understand," he offered. She was unwrapping a pillow from its plastic and now she laid it at Wyatt's side, wadding the plastic up under her arm. She gave Wyatt's head a smooth stroke, then moved to throw away the plastic in the medical waste bin.

"I expect they'll nap a while, won't they?" she said, like making conversation. And he hummed something agreeable and the nurse was happy enough. She came in and nodded to Kate's arm; he tapped Kate's back to let her know the stranger's touch was coming.

While the nurse took Kate's pulse, timing it slowly, she kept giving the boys side glances. Castle didn't know what that meant, or why she was curious, but he stroked his fingers along Kate's temple to help hide her face.

She really had relaxed, somewhat, despite the woman taking her vitals, and he hoped she found some kind of peace resting at his side. He realized, belatedly, that her breasts were bare and the hospital gown obviously in disarray, but she was pressed against him so maybe-

No. The nurse had noticed. She frowned again and glanced back to the boys.

When she had finished jotting down her notes, she crossed her arms over the chart at her chest and eyed him. "You heard the doc say no breastfeeding, right?"

Castle pressed his fingertips into Kate's back, shifting his arm to hide her startle. "Yes," he answered. "I heard."

"She has high dose antibiotics going through her system. The babies will get-"

"I know," he answered quickly, keeping Kate down. Just stay down. He wasn't sure she could fake it, and he didn't have time right now to explain. "I told her. She - wasn't so happy with me."

The nurse narrowed her eyes, obviously glancing at Kate's untied hospital gown. He splayed his fingers over Kate's back, not liking how exposed she was here, how vulnerable. The bed was half-upright, but he didn't like even that slight angle of a disadvantage.

He didn't say anything, kept his face carefully neutral, not looking at the nurse overlong, not avoiding eye contact either. She humphed and then turned to put the chart at the foot of the bed. "Well, all right. But pelvic rest is in strict enforcement."

Castle let himself blush, so she'd think they were fooling around - let her even think it had been something kinky if she couldn't nurse the boys - and the nurse looked satisfied. Confirming her suspicions but in a manner that couldn't be spoken about.

She gave him a rather withering look and finally left.

Kate jerked out of his grip, pushing off hard on his chest, her face white. "Why didn't you tell me? What if I hurt them, God-"

"You didn't," he said hastily, cupping her face in his hands. "You can't. You can't hurt them, Kate. You can't."

"But the antibiotics - we need to get that nurse and have her take-"

"No," he said urgently, maybe a little too fiercely because she flinched, nearly taking her head out of his hands. He tried to gentle his voice, soften his touch. "No, love. Definitely can't have them under scrutiny. But you didn't hurt them. It's fine to nurse, even with the antibiotics. I read their files - it's okay."

"What are you talking-"

"They're advanced. Very advanced. Higher up the spectrum than I am, though maybe not Colin-"

"What?" she rasped, her eyes darting to the boys. It was entirely distracting to have her breasts in his face, bare and pale and lovely.

No wonder he wasn't making any sense. "Their stage of development - you do know what Black was doing, don't you? Creating the perfect soldier?"

Kate jerked all the way upright, sitting at his hip, her eyes wide. "What."

"Me. My brothers. Our DNA has been altered - he experimented first on himself, seeded these - candidates, women across-" Castle shook his head. "My DNA is altered, it's a chromosomal change, Kate. So the boys are like me."

"What does that mean?"

"They have strength, coordination, agility - just to start. Faster mental processing, a facility with languages - some of this can't be proved, of course, but that was why the repeated trials, the - the generations."

Her jaw dropped.

"So the boys will need some of that elixir at first, just to be sure their blood cells continue to develop correctly through the first few years of life. They're fine, though, according to their records. Not like Alex and Ben. They won't need so much, but you - Kate. You have to - keep nursing for a while."

"How - how do you know all this?"

He sat forward with her, gently reached for the loose material of the gown. "It's my life," he said finally. The bleakness of his own voice was something of a surprise.

She touched his elbow where he slowly moved to redress her. She hung on even while he tied the first ties at her shoulder. "It's your life," she murmured.

"Since I was three. I know what it looks like, what it does, how dangerous it is. The elixir. You can't come off it all at once, love, or it will - your heart will fail. But I won't let that happen."

"But I don't - we burned down the whole place," she whispered.

"I took four vials from Alex," he answered softly. The first tie was done, a strange, floppy bow on her shoulder. He fingered the side of her neck, unwilling to lose her. "They're his, he's not stable like - like Colin and I - like the boys are, will be-"

"But won't Alex need those?"

"He can make more," Castle said. "And where he works - they'll have plenty. You, love, you need it too. Just for a little while."

Her eyes closed, her whole face collapsing. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her, brought her gently in against him.

"The boys are - stable though?"

"They are," he murmured. "Closed systems - their own blood cells take care of the byproducts."

"But what about all the antibiotics I'm on-"

"It'll barely touch them," he said softly. He could smell her in her hair - the musk of her, the sweat and struggle. It was an erotic perfume. "Whatever gets added to their system metabolizes very fast. It's why they're so heavily asleep."

"Oh, God," she moaned.

He clutched her a little tighter, his hand tangling in her hair. "It's fine, I promise. I'll make sure you get what you need and in the right - the right doses-" Fuck, he ought to have Alex's help for this, Alex and his exact knowledge of the numbers, the levels. "I won't let you die, Kate."

She snaked her arm around his neck but she wasn't crying. She was clinging to him, but it had a definite strength to it, as if she could keep him here by force.

"I'm not going anywhere," he promised. "I'm right here. You're not alone. You don't ever have to be alone."

\-----

It was so tempting to give in and believe him; it was so tempting to think platitudes were reality.

But they weren't reality. Reality was two boys who needed - needed a home and parents who wanted them and who knew what the hell they were doing. Reality was that she was really fucked here, and she had no family left, and maybe there were a few cousins and her father's much older sister, but Aunt Teresa could be dead for all she knew, the cousins most definitely scattered.

She would need - therapy, most likely. Yeah. Even in the hospital, drugged, she'd had terrible dreams, waking paralyzed, unable to even cry out. Therapy was fucking expensive and she didn't have health insurance-

"I don't have health insurance," she croaked, jerking away from him again. 

"You do," he said slowly, flicking his eyes to the door. She turned but no one was there, and she realized he was - paranoid.

Well, yeah. Good reason.

"I do," she questioned.

"I do," he answered. "And - you're my wife."

"I'm not-" She blanked. "Oh."

"Keep it simple," he murmured. "That's the first rule."

"Kiss," she sighed.

"What?" His fingers clutched at her arms, his eyes darting to her lips.

She laughed. "Keep It Simple, Stupid. KISS. That's what they always said in - oh, I don't know. Somewhere. Another life."

He sobered, stopped looking at her mouth. "Right."

"I'm - never gonna get back there, I am?"

He avoided her eyes entirely, turning his head, letting her go. "No. I - I don't think you will."

Kate felt her shoulders slump and she tried to fight it, the urge to curl up and - and die. "My dad - maybe I can find a - newspaper archives. I've forgotten how to use microfiche but-"

"It's online," he said quietly.

"On - on the computer?"

"I know what happened to your dad, Kate."

She saw it on his face; it was bad. It was bad and it because of her and she couldn't look at him. Kate pressed her hands into her eyes. "Tell - tell me."

"I don't think now is-"

"You fucking tell me," she yelled.

Both boys whimpered from the other bed, and her heart crashed. She was - completely not okay. She was not okay.

"The NYPD sent your case to storage after eight months. No traction. Your father couldn't - he wasn't okay with that. One of the detectives - based on his report - seemed to think you had gotten in with a bad crowd and they'd done something and you had - run away."

"Oh, God."

"It's possible your father sensed that attitude or was even told that to his face, because he took out a loan and sold his condo and his car and he put the money into private detectives. And - and he went looking for you, love."

"My dad," she cried, pressing her hands harder into her eyes, but the tears streaked out, renegade, ugly.

"Yeah, sweetheart, your dad was - was looking for you. When he was - was mugged in an alley."

"No."

"I - it has the markings of my - of my - of Black's usual way of handling - oh God, Kate, I'm so sorry. But he probably - your dad was making too much noise and Coonan was still - Black was still using him for work. And so he-"

"He murdered my dad," she mewled.

Castle touched her knee and she crashed into him, heart breaking, breaking, just - breaking.

It was never going to be okay again. Why had she ever - even - what had been the point of this at all? Her mother was dead, her father was dead, those two - two little tiny babies were dead. She had done it, she had murdered them - and for this?

For nothing.

\-----

God, this was the worst thing that he had ever - that had ever-

Could he die from someone else's pain?

It swamped him; it laid so thick over his heart that he could barely breathe through it. Every second she cried in his arms was a struggle - to stay, to keep breathing, to stay when it wounded so fiercely.

He wasn't like Colin. He didn't know why he felt her so vividly, why it pierced him straight through, a sword in his guts. But he held her, probably too tight, and she wept. 

She wasn't frantic, wasn't sobbing; she just cried, the tears twisting her face. He stroked through her hair, his thumb catching what he could, and he stayed.

He could do it. It was killing him, twisting his guts, but he wasn't going to leave her. Fuck, no wonder Colin had cracked. And James-

He glanced over his shoulder, and the boy was awake, clinging to the bed railings, tears streaked down his face. Wyatt - just beyond him - wasn't crying but he was awake as well. 

Damn.

It hurt that she hurt - it ached fucking terribly - but the boys were going to have to just cling to each other for a moment and trust that Castle could be her comfort. God, he didn't know if he could at all comfort her for this. Her parents had been murdered - they were gone, and she had no family left but these boys - and of course, they'd been forced on her so how much family could that possibly be?

God, she had been saddled with twins and she shouldn't have to - they weren't her responsibility and yet she had done everything for them, that enforced emotional connection, that - that rape. And now here these boys were, demanding things, and Castle had just told her flat out she'd have to keep nursing them even if she didn't want to because she might die or they might not develop correctly, and so fuck.

"If you - I can-" He stopped and tried to think of what to say. He would just - no use hesitating and beating around the bush. She was hurt, and hurting, and maybe he could alleviate some of it. "I'll take the boys."

She stiffened.

"You shouldn't be forced to - to do anything you don't want to do." He didn't look at them, those two boys crying because Kate cried. "Too much has been taken from you and still - will be - and I won't - make you keep - they're mine, and my father's doing, and I'll-"

"-take them from me too?" she choked out.

He fell silent; he didn't know what that meant. He didn't know. He could feel so much of her, right there against his heart, but at the same time, he couldn't understand it. Feeling it and knowing what it was she felt weren't the same. Knowing what he felt wasn't the same either.

"Probably-" She sucked in a ragged breath and pushed away from him; her arms were pressed into her sides, her eyes closed as she just - struggled to stay upright. "That - um - could they be adopted and - and someone who - someone would love them? Would someone l-love-"

"Kate?"

She pressed her hands into her face, and he realized he'd somehow made it worse.

"I don't know how to make this better, Kate." He'd never not had a plan before. "I don't know what to do to make it right."

She dropped her hands. Her whole face was blank, a bleak nothing. She didn't avoid his eyes, but she didn't seem to be there when she looked at him. "Can't be - made right."

One of the boys wailed.

Kate laid down and curled on her side, her back to him.

\----- 

He stood there for a long time, immobile, struck.

And then pieces of reality came back to him, like broken shards - both of the boys were crying, pathetic, irritating; Kate was a dull wash in the bed, his chest ached, the sun had gone behind clouds or it had never been out and the room was gray.

He moved mechanically to Kate, moved as if in a bog, feet sucked down by mud. He got into the bed behind her - she was so narrow, so long-limbed and angular - and he just picked her up and held her in his lap. The boys were disconsolate, but they'd survive, and Kate was - was gone.

There was a cold kind of draft where she had been, as if she had physically disappeared from the room. He was holding her warm body in his arms, but she wasn't responding to him. To anything. At all.

He struggled weakly through that sensation of entombing ice, numbed to his soul, and he curled his arm at her neck and cradled her against his chest like a baby.

It was then that the hospital room door opened, and he looked up, vaguely registering that his weapon was in the bag on the far side of the room, and that the boys were both crying, but unable to drag himself away from the black, gaping chasm that had opened up inside.

The nurse gave the whole scene a fast assessment and whatever it was that she saw, Castle had no idea, but she went to the boys first. His heart clutched and he made some kind of noise, but she was picking them up now.

She was going to take them. He had made a choice and it wasn't what a parent was supposed to do and now she was going to call Child Services and take them and he had done it all wrong-

"There, there," the nurse murmured. "It's not so bad as all that." She approached the bed, both boys in her arms and both of them squirming and unhappy and leaking tears everywhere, and then she put them down on the mattress.

With Kate. 

Right between his body and hers. Wyatt pitched forward into Kate's chest and James climbed over her arm and then under it. And then Kate sobbed and opened to them, enveloping the boys in her arms and burying her face down between them and those boys just clutched at her and gripped handfuls of her hair and cried, all of them crying.

"There, sweet things, that will ease you. Being together." The nurse patted the boys' backs and then Kate's arm, and then she gripped his bicep, looking at him pointedly.

"Thanks," he got out and heard how his own voice cracked.

The nurse rubbed his back. "You're doing good, Daddy. Some of these men think they gotta keep it together, but that's worse. That's worse. You're doing good if you can cry together."

And then he realized he had tears down his own cheeks, that his eyes burned - and his heart. "I - don't think I'm doing any of them any good," he got out.

"Being here. That's the most good. It will get better. Maybe not now, and maybe not soon, but it will with time. Put in the time, honey."

He nodded, throat bobbing, and she turned to leave them again. He guessed the whole floor had heard the boys crying. The nurse left as smartly as she'd come, and then Castle was alone with the boys still sniffling and sad and Kate.

But that blank nothing had been replaced by a new and terrible grief; he felt that too. So did the boys, no doubt, and they huddled pathetically on Kate's chest, all those tears mixing on the damp skin of her neck.

Castle gave up trying to be good or right or strong and he just held them all. One big tight bundle, half-reclining against the raised head of the bed, no one happy, no one relaxed, all of them miserable.

Can't be fixed.

\-----

“Hush, hush, hush,” she heard. The feeling of hands, limbs, pressure, warmth but wet. “Please. Please stop crying.”

She had cried herself to sleep, cocooned by bodies. She opened her eyes to find herself curled on her side, curled around a boy with another clinging to her hip, and behind him, Castle, tucked in close. She shifted slowly, feeling heavy, and her arm snaked around the boy.

Oh. James. She let out a sigh and felt Castle pushing closer. Wyatt was now draped along her ribs, making it hard to breathe, but Castle was practically on top of her, equally constricting.

His fingers feathered at her temple and brushed her hair back from her neck. Damp with tears. She was exhausted from it, washed out. Strangely clean.

He didn’t say anything and she reached back for Wyatt, dragged him over her hip and down to the mattress with James. Both of them curled up small, so small, as if taking up less space meant not attracting negative attention, meant a lower profile and less likely for dire consequences.

She loved them.

She hadn’t meant to. She had tried so hard to keep herself separate, to wall herself off so that nothing touched her. She had known she’d never have them, she would never be allowed them, so she had held herself apart.

And then they had asked for her, in the only way available to them, refusing to eat or sleep, failure to thrive they’d said - until Kate was given back to them. One feeding a night, bedtime, their own secret rituals. Whispering their names in their ears and stroking the backs of their necks where she held them, where no one could see her love them.

She had really thought she could do this.

But she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t - she couldn’t have them now and then have to let them go again but she would have to, for their sakes, for a real-

James cried out sharply. Castle was suddenly encompassing her and them both - was he falling over-? And then he was face to face with her and the boys crushed between them and his fingers stroking her cheeks, her chin, her forehead, his own visage so stricken that she sucked in a ragged breath and stopped crying.

“I’m doing my best here,” he whispered. “But it’s piss-poor and inept. Can you - tell me what I can do?”

“Take - take them away from me so I - so I can’t - I can’t-”

“I can’t take them away without them wailing, love. I’m sorry. I know you can’t, I know it’s too much, but they love you, sweetheart. So then they can’t either. Taking them away from you is tearing their little hearts out.”

She sobbed, trying to untangle her her arms from the babies so she could hide her face - she was used to closing it up, walling everything off, but she couldn’t seem to make it stay any more. Everything was bleeding out into the rest of it, and her heart - her heart hurt.

“And yours,” he murmured. His fingers caught her hands and closed them into fists, and he was knee to knee and forehead to forehead, and she hurt so badly. “Oh, baby, please. I know they’re gone, I know your parents - and they loved you and you loved them, but I will do anything - I’d do anything for you.”

Except give her a clean break. She had to linger, nurse these boys for however long it took to be sure her own health was secure, for however long it took to be certain the boys would grow strong. She had to linger, allowed now to touch them, to hold them, to caress their little faces and feel their little hands reaching for her. She had to linger, and it was going to kill her when she gave them up.

Kill her but she’d still be alive.

Wyatt mewled, clutching her shirt, tugging so that his face found the bare skin at her chest, the tie not closed on her hospital gown. Castle lifted his arm, glancing down at Wyatt, laid his hand on the boy’s head. James was wriggling around his brother and now he practically climbed the other baby’s back to get up in her face.

She stared into James’s eyes; he was so unhappy. She was so unhappy. She had never - in three years - allowed herself to feel it, to think it, and now it drowned her.

She was so fucking tired of not having control. Of herself, her life, her - her love. Everything taken from her, but the boys...

“I just wanted to save them,” she said, sick of herself. Sick of everything. “I only wanted to save them.”

“You did, Kate. You saved them.”

“For what?” she whispered. “They want me. I - I’ve got nothing to give them.”

“You’re giving to them right now. Holding them close, comforting them. You’ve been giving to them. They want you, Kate.”

“My - my dad’s gone,” she said, trying to face it. Confront it. The truth of all her secrets. “I guess I’d - no, I know I’d somehow thought my dad would - he’d make it okay again. And he’d be a granddad and I’d have - have something - some place - and figure it out. But he’s gone. It’s all gone.”

“I know it’s bad, and it’s - your life. I know. But you have the boys, love. I didn’t want you to think you had to, that you had no other choice.”

“I don’t,” she said simply. “I can’t - can’t, even though I should give them up-”

“No,” he growled.

She blinked, pulled out of herself by his fierceness.

“I was one of those boys,” he said. “Should isn’t - should is staying with you. Their mother. That’s what should happen. But I only want for you to-”

“But if they can find - find someone for them who won’t be so damn broken. God, I have nothing, Castle. Aren’t you hearing me? I didn’t even finish college. I have no health insurance, no job, no home. I’ll ruin them before-”

“You won’t ruin them. Fuck. You think I lacked for any of those things?” He looked furious. A hurt kind of fury, deep wounds that hadn’t healed - just bricked up like her own.

She just stared at him.

Castle’s fingers clenched and made a fist; he pushed himself upright and drew his knees in, arms clasped around them. It gave James and Wyatt room to both get at her, and she was pushed to her back by their weight.

Castle’s head bowed for a moment, but then he looked back at her over his shoulder. “I was fed - my meals perfectly planned by a nutritionist to offset our training. I had new shoes. I had computers and books and schoolwork, learning languages and math and all the genus names of the plants in the Congo. I had my brothers.” Castle touched James’s foot and Kate felt the way it traveled through the boy; his head came down against her chest. 

“But. I had a fucked up father who made everything miserable, everything a competition. Dark. You can’t even - God, you can imagine. You know.” Castle swiped his hand down his face and turned back to them, his hand coming to rest on Wyatt’s back. “He brainwashed us until we had no idea what was right or good; he twisted us. Even against each other. That’s ruining.”

She swallowed, weighted down by the boys, caught by that look on his face.

“What you did was set us all free, Kate.” His hand left James’s back and touched Wyatt’s head. And then to the side of her face. “Gave us back our lives. All of us. You had the courage for that. You got courage now to live that life with us?”

Kate swiped at the tears leaking back to her ears, and then she nodded, throat too tight to speak.

“Then sit up with me,” he insisted. “Sit with me and help me make them hush, and - and we can talk? I just want to know - all about you. We can figure out what life looks like now.”

“Okay,” she said, then cleared her throat. “Okay. Help me up.”

He reached out his hand and she clasped it with her own, and he dragged her upright, an arm bracing her back while she clutched the boys. She shifted to one side and nodded to the scant empty space beside her.

Castle grinned. “That’s my girl,” he murmured.

Was she his girl?

Did she want to be?

God, maybe she did.

\-----


	6. Chapter 6

James had won the coveted spot on her chest, both of Kate’s arms wrapped around his little body. Wyatt seemed resigned to staying with him, though he had turned his head so that he could still see Kate. Castle was pretty sure that having the boys near her was better for her peace of mind than his lewd groping, but he could admit he was selfishly sorry to see her clothed.

When Wyatt still mewled, his fingers in his mouth, his eyes so puppy-pathetic on her, Kate lifted a hand and laid it over Wyatt’s back. James clutched her hospital gown with both hands as if to keep her there, and Wyatt snuffled on Castle’s shoulder. Both boys slept after a while, lulled by rhythmic breathing and the view and touch of Kate.

And when they were, Kate shifted until she could put her head on his shoulder.

He felt like a fucking hero, having her lean against him. It hadn’t been an exaggeration, hadn’t just been talking her down from the ledge - she had truly set him free. And now she was leaning on him.

“I have a - little apartment in the city,” he said quietly. He liked Wyatt’s weight against him too; he hadn’t realized it could make him feel proud, as proud as he felt to have Kate leaning on him. “It’s in Spanish Harlem, and it really is small, but - oh, fuck, I don’t think there’s a bed.”

“How can you not know if you have a bed?”

“Don’t get a chance to stay there often. But um, it’s like a pallet thing on the floor. I should’ve - shit. We’ll need beds for them, won’t we?” Beds for all of them.

She nudged her cheek against his shoulder. “One bed,” she murmured.

One? Oh. Oh, he - liked that. “Yeah,” he breathed.

“They might do better at first if - if they’re together.”

Oh. She meant the boys. “Damn. I would too,” he sighed.

“You’re right,” she said, grimacing a little. “They seem able to comfort each other. Except for - just now.”

She didn’t seem to understand his insinuation, and he sighed again, letting it pass. If she wanted to finally sleep without some asshole watching her, then yeah, she should be able to do that. He’d find her a bed, and he’d stay on the floor.

Unless she invited him up.

She was awfully quiet.

“Or - if you don’t want to stay in the city, I have a couple other places. Well, they’re CIA places. But they’re nice and quiet, and no one will bother us if I say.”

“If you say? You’re in the CIA?”

He startled. Had he just - fucking said that? Had he not said it before? “Yeah. I am. I - have a station, five-man roster under me. I have control of three safe houses.”

She lifted her head from his shoulder. “You’re - like big-time.”

He huffed, ducking his chin to glance at Wyatt. Still asleep. “I don’t know. Just - did the job. Did what he told me. Got there because he’s - was - my father.”

“Oh.” She stroked a finger over the curve of James’s skull. “So you’re an incompetent ass just sitting behind a desk, pushing pencils?”

He bristled, shifting forward, and she chuckled, laying her head back down on his shoulder.

“Mm, that’s what I thought,” she murmured. “And Colin? Where is he?”

“Disappearing us. And re-appearing you, or trying to.”

“Reappearing me?”

“Um. Not you-you, but a plausible cover ID. Medical history. Health insurance.” He lifted his hand and cupped the side of her face, pushing her hair back behind her ear. He really loved touching her hair, the softness of it, the scent that came up to him. 

How she seemed to unconsciously nudge into his hand. After everything she’d been through, everything she’d survived, she was this beautiful, warm light. He felt her all through his body and sparking in his head, catching in his heart.

“You’re - inventing this for me? Plausible cover.”

He laid his hand at the side of her neck and then dropped it. “It’s what I do. My job, been my whole life. You’ll have what you need, Kate. Even - even without me if-”

“Where else?” she said sharply. “Safe houses. Any of them on the beach?”

She was joking, but- “Yeah. Yeah, love, one’s on the beach - a lake at least.”

Kate lifted her head again and stared at him. Her mouth opened but James shifted in his sleep and she dropped her gaze to the boy, cupping the back of his head. She put her chin to the top of his head and he faintly thought he heard - humming.

She was singing.

Castle angled into her, putting his head to her shoulder, and she hitched in her song, but she touched the side of his face. Her fingers scratched softly in his scalp, through the short hair behind his ear, and then her song continued.

Soft, barely there, no words he could distinguish, but he felt both boys release some leftover tension in their sleep, settle deeper. He shifted his arm so that he could hold Wyatt with one hand free, and he laid it on her thigh, his forearm along her leg so that his fingers grazed her knee.

The hum of her lullaby touched him too, and the trail of her fingers through his hair. He’d gotten a couple hours of sleep after nearly 72 hours up, tracking and tracing the security for that last facility. Where Kate had been.

Where Kate had been held for so long.

And here she was, cradling his head against her shoulder like he was one more boy she had to look after.

But he couldn’t make himself stop.

“I don’t need the beach,” she said softly. “The city. Where my parents - the city. If you have room for me. For us.”

“I want you,” he said quickly. And then lifted his head. “With me. I-”

She smiled, her fingers dragging down around his ear, stroking the shell. Her eyes were pretty. Dark with light in them, a kind of impossible thing but there anyway. He opened his mouth to tell her how much he liked her looking at him, and she chose just that moment to touch his lips.

With hers. Soft. Hesitant. A wait in them, a kind of sounding out.

He lifted his hand and cupped her jaw, angled her mouth against his to open her. He found her tongue before he knew she was pushing deeper, breathed the rich scent of her so close, the heat of her mouth as she kissed him.

She kissed him.

He found himself grunting, pushing back, trying to find his place in this. Trying to find balance, but there was no balance around her. There was just this overwhelming urge to have, to have, to dive as deep as the water would let him and stay.

She moaned and broke from his mouth, her forehead pressed tightly to his, her fingers still gripping his ear.

“Wow,” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Just yeah?”

“Fuck,” he croaked out. “Just - thought maybe it deserved less cursing.”

She laughed breathlessly, then she pressed her lips to his again, open mouthed, and she licked at his teeth.  
Castle grunted, shockingly aroused, and he gripped her wrist with a caught breath. “Baby, you’re gonna push me right over the edge.”

“You did say I’d get my very own introduction.”

He startled, then he had to release her wrist and grab Wyatt before the boy could slide right off his shoulder. “Hell.”

“Is it?”

He grunted again, shocked by how quickly this girl had reduced him to one-word syllables. This girl. “It’s something.” He shook his head. “Not showing the goods with two boys between us.”

“Oh, that sounded really disgusting.” She wrinkled her nose. She was really cute like this, even with a baby curled up on her chest and drooling. Maybe especially. Maybe he was crazy.

“So you’ll stay with me?” he said quickly. “In the city. And we’ll figure it out - day by day - what we need to do for the boys, for you. And you’ll get better, you’ll heal, love, and I-”

“And you can properly introduce us?” she whispered.

\-----

When the door cracked open, Kate flinched, turning her head to look. But it wasn’t the nurse. It was the brother, the tall and wiry one with the restless and jumpy nature, the brother who had been there to burn the place down.

With his trophy.

“Where’s the man?” he said, his eyes sliding from her to the boy sleeping at her side. “And the other little echo?”

Echo? “James,” she supplied. “He’s walking him. Trying to get him to sleep.”

Colin nodded, glancing to the door before he took the bag off his shoulder and placed it on the chair. “Well, I got - everything he needs in here. And you too. Clothes. Uh. Shit. I’m no good at interpersonal shit if it’s real, so - let me go find my brother.”

She gaped at him as he left, surprised by that brief and awkward interaction, but Colin had already slipped right back out the door. 

She turned on her side once more and curled around Wyatt, laying her hand on his back. James had been trouble, and she had tried to nurse him again, now that the night had settled, but he hadn’t taken the breast.

She was scared to death of the antibiotics, of whatever DNA stuff and byproducts and blood cells - whatever it was that Castle had been talking about. Enhanced. Scared to death that it was hurting him somehow, that she’d managed to screw him up already.

Castle had taken James out because Kate couldn’t calm down, not because James couldn’t. She knew that, and she knew that Castle knew that, but neither of them had said it. She had practically pushed him out the door; he hadn’t wanted to go.

But James needed distance from her roiling emotions, the grief that weighted her down like stones. At least Wyatt seemed able to shut himself off, close down. Or he didn’t feel it the same. 

Or he was a naturally happier kid. Wouldn’t that be a miracle? If she’d made a happy kid despite herself.

“You a happy boy?” she murmured, touching her lips to his ear. He hummed in his sleep and twitched, and she pulled back, surprised at how it felt, her mouth on him like a kiss.

The door clicked and came open and Kate jerked upright, but it was Castle coming back with James and Colin. Castle gave her an apologetic look and nodded to the bag on the chair, but he put a sleeping James down on the other bed. She could see from here how the boy was sacked out, mouth open in his sleep, a drool stain on Castle’s shirt.

Her heart flipped and then sank, sank, sank.

How fast she went from noticing something beautiful to all the ways she could and had fucked it up.

“Oh, this is good,” Castle said.

She glanced back to him and saw he was rifling through a manilla envelope, withdrawing a packet of what looked like id papers. Passports, driver’s licenses, other laminated cards. She saw the flash of blue and knew it was social security.

“Are those for the boys?” she said, her hand covering Wyatt’s head, dampening the sound coming to him.

“Yeah,” Colin said, head jerking as he nodded. “Dumped the Humvee. Got you a new one with carseats.”

“God,” she whispered.

“Naw,” Colin smirked. “But I’ll take the praise.”

She smiled at him, surprised to find herself warming to his awkward, irritating charm. He saluted her - shit, he could sense things, right? - and then he nodded to the bag.

Castle was digging through, pulling out baby clothes, burp cloths, pacifiers. It was a diaper bag. Like an actual diaper bag for parents when they took their babies out and needed - needed all this stuff.

“Thank you for that,” she said quietly, glancing to Colin. He gave a jittery shrug and she suddenly realized-

he was on medication.

Oh.

Oh, Colin.

Castle reached out and gripped the back of Colin’s neck, shaking him a little. “Yes. Thank you, brother. You’re coming with us.”

“No.”

Castle growled but Colin shrugged out of his grip. They faced each other across the bag. Neither looked ready to bend, and she wondered if the medication was legal.

“You’ll stay with us for a little while?” Kate asked. It was all she could do to help.

Colin shivered, and he turned his head to the door. 

It opened at just that moment, and the nurse who came through (not the nurse from earlier) stopped suddenly, surprised to come upon this scene. But she looked at Kate. “Everything okay here?”

“Oh, yes,” Kate said, trying to keep her voice down. “Boys are finally asleep.” She lifted her hand and stroked over Wyatt’s soft hair. “Thank you for - understanding.”

“It’s fine,” the nurse said, though obviously she didn’t think it was fine. She’d gotten her orders though. She came into the room and directly to Kate, the chart open as she approached. 

The boys were silent - the brothers - the men. God, what the hell, it was like one big happy family.

“Heart rate is good. We had a few spells, I see, but it’s been an emotional day, I hear.”

Kate flushed, but she should’ve fucking expected that. It wasn’t anything different from the last three years’ scrutiny, and this was a damn hospital. She saw Castle’s scowling face and his advance from across the room and she lifted her hand and gestured him off.

She had been used to this, a day ago. She had been just fine a day ago.

The nurse frowned. “Sit up for me.”

Kate blinked.

“Please,” the nurse gritted out.

But Kate hadn’t meant to play those games; this wasn’t about power. She was a patient, voluntarily (mostly), and this was the professional assigned to her floor tonight. She just - she was just - it was making her edgy.

“Yes, sorry,” she said quickly, and she shifted to sit so that the nurse could get her arm.

Castle came up at her side and touched her shoulder, his frown a question. Do I need to do something?

How did she know that was what was on his face? She totally knew he wanted to scare the nurse from the room, but she shook her head imperceptibly.

Castle didn’t leave her side though, and she wondered if it registered in her blood pressure, a harder beat through her heart at having him close.

The pressure cuff pinched and she found herself with her shoulders up near her ears, squirming like a baby.

Castle’s fingers trailed at the bicep of her other arm, and she turned her head to him in relief, smiling tightly.

He kissed her temple.

She blushed and knocked her cheek against him.

“All right,” the nurse said, releasing the cuff. Releasing a tight frown between them. “Your doctor’s left orders saying you can be released in the morning if you don’t spike a fever. So far, you’re doing just fine.”

Kate lifted her head, stunned. “I can - go?”

“You’ll be discharged, but the social worker will have to-”

“What social worker?” Castle growled.

The nurse scowled back at him, giving Castle a run for his money, that was for sure. “It’s standard procedure on release, sir. The social worker comes through, gives you a rundown on aftercare, and then you sign discharge papers.”

Kate shifted her hand to snag his waistband, trying to shut him up. Social worker was standard; it had nothing to do with the boys.

“If you like - there’s a shower in the attached bathroom. You should have time in the morning before the discharge goes through.” The nurse’s face seemed to shift, soften maybe, if Kate believed in that kind of thing from medical staff like her. “Shower would make you feel like a new person.”

Kate blinked dumbly. Had that been - sympathy?

“Anyway, up to you.” The woman walked swiftly to the white board on the far wall, using a dry erase marker to put up Kate’s last vitals. Her penmanship was cramped and small, pinched.

“Thank you,” she called to the nurse.

The woman said something sharp in return and withdrew, slinging the blood pressure cuff around her neck as she left the room. Kate let out a breath and leaned her head back against the head of the bed.

She was damn exhausted.

“Sorry about that,” Castle grumbled.

“Used to it,” she muttered back.

“God.”

She lifted her head and saw his face turn away from her. She tugged on his pants where her hand still rested, and he glanced back at her. She nodded to his brother. “Think he’d baby-sit for us?”

“What?” Castle’s mouth dropped open.

“She said there’s a shower in that bathroom. I want a shower. With your help.”

“Hell.”

“I can’t promise it won’t be,” she told him, grimacing.

\-----

Castle saw Colin give him a look as Beckett went inside the attached bathroom. In return, Castle gave him the finger and shut the door, leaning back against it to look at Kate.

She was standing still in the middle of the tile floor, her fingers fiddling with the rise of the hospital gown. Biting her lip. She was young, so young, and the sorrow was pressed into her eyes. 

"Sit, love," he murmured, moving forward to catch her arms and squeeze. She let him guide her back to the handicap railing where she sank back against it, gripping the metal with blanched fingers. He cupped her jaw and pushed back her hair, tried to see her, have her see him.

She was wearing those fuzzy socks the nurse had given her, rubber strips on the soles and the hospital name emblazoned across the tops. Her knees stuck out from the gown, the hem crooked as she perched on the railing, and Castle skimmed his fingers there, unable to help himself.

"Can't do this, you know," he told her quietly, even as he did it. Touched her. "Colin's right there."

"Oh." She glanced up. "But behind a door."

"A door's not a door for his head," he tried to explain. "Not entirely."

"Oh." She swallowed and he could see the delicate work of her throat. He shuffled closer to her, bracketing her angular knees with his own legs. 

She put her hands on his hips. He skimmed the hospital gown up higher on her legs.

"Maybe you should start the water then," she told him quietly.

He nodded, unwilling to move, but he had to - she wanted to get a shower, not to be molested. Before he turned away, he leaned in and brushed his lips across her cheekbone, skirting close to her mouth where he really wanted to be. He could feel the sigh of her breath.

Castle turned and opened the single stall door, the cheap plastic-fit shower. But it had a seat, and he thought that was good - she'd probably need it. He pushed on the water, leaving his hand in the spray to test out the temperature, figuring not too hot was a good idea right now.

He felt her fingers at his side and he turned, jaw dropping as she saw her naked. "Fuck, I wanted to do that," he husked.

She looked nervous, but a little defiant too, standing there with her hip bones showing and her skin white as snow and her breasts so full and round and heavy. 

His guts clenched.

"Sorry to spoil your fun," she murmured, using her foot to sweep aside the hospital gown. 

Castle came forward and placed his hands on her hips (one hand wet from the spray and it slicked along her skin and made them both shiver) and he picked her up off her feet. She gasped and gripped his biceps, and Castle turned and deposited her inside the narrow stall.

"Aren't you coming in with me?" she murmured.

"I'm not sure I should."

"What if I get too tired to stand?"

Damn, was she being coy? He couldn't fucking tell. She was sensual as sin and had been since he'd found her soaked in blood and standing over a dead man, and now in nothing but her bare skin and those breasts and the water running over one shoulder, she was so beautiful he ached.

"There's a seat," he said. "Built in."

"That's not fair at all," she said. Talking only just loud enough so that he could hear over the spray. "You've seen mine but I haven't seen yours."

He shouldn't; he should not. Pelvic rest and what she was enticing him to do wasn't resting at all. 

"Fine," he growled. "But no touching."

Her lips turned down. Pouting. Fuck, she couldn't do that - couldn't look at him like that. 

"Kate," he warned.

"But I want to. And there's no rule that says you can't..." Kate trailed off and she glanced away from him, and he realized once more that she was shy. Or not entirely as confident as she pretended to be. 

Damn it all, of course she wasn't. She'd been caged for the last three years and she'd had twins and she was young, she was so damn young, and how much experience could she possibly have?

"Fine, but - but - hell." He had no idea what to guard against, what rules to make when she was intent on breaking them - intent on doing whatever she wanted now that she could. "But don't ask me to hurt you."

She blinked, shivering in the weak spray of the shower. "No. I - don't want you to hurt me."

He nodded, his chest easing a little, and he moved to strip his shirt off over his head. When the material cleared his eyes, he could see her watching him, studying him, tracing along the lines of his muscles, absorbing every detail. He couldn't help slowing it down for her, for him, easing his black fatigues down his hips and revealing his black boxer briefs slowly.

He toed off his shoes and pushed them aside, dropped his pants and kicked out of them. She let out a little sound that - when he lifted his head and looked - seemed to have been a laugh. He smiled back and she - she just blossomed with it. Her grin raced across her face and made her eyes light up, and she reached out of the shower and tucked her fingers in the waistband of his briefs.

"Now these," she said. "Be polite and introduce us."

"I'm not actually going to-"

She laughed again and it sounded so wonderful, bouncing off the tile and through the warm room. He pushed his hands under the elastic and tried to make a show of it, giving ample clearance for his cock as he took off the briefs. Kate kept her hands to herself and watched him, her eyes darting up to his face every few heartbeats, like she wasn't sure she was allowed to look.

He caught her gaze and she blushed, reaching out a hand to him and beckoning him forward.

So Castle stepped into the narrow shower with her and immediately she was crowded back against the wall.

"Oh," she whispered. And then Kate tilted forward and laid her cheek against his chest, her hands coming to rest, very carefully, at his sides.

Her breasts felt amazing.

Castle could do nothing other than wrap his arms around her and hold her to him.

\-----

She stayed against his chest, the warm water trickling down between them, licking her skin and pooling between her breasts where their stomachs were pressed together. He kept combing his fingers through her hair, some of it soaked through and some of it still kinking in the humidity, combing like he was determined to evenly distributed water across her scalp.

She liked him. How he - he tried for her. He was all ragged edges, and he talked a lot - too much, and he liked to have everything his way, but he kept coming back around to this default setting of such a good man. He tried to make her feel better, he let her cry on him, he did what he thought was right for the boys.

He talked too much; there was that. But he wasn't talking now.

That kind of made her nervous. He did talk too much, and not talking - what did that mean?

Though he was holding on to her, not clutching her, not clinging, just - holding her close. His hands were flat to her back, one at her spine, one between her shoulder blades. The heat of him was greater than the spray from the shower, and she shuffled a step closer.

Now his arms seemed to wind around her, wrapping her fully in his embrace. Not just holding her, but - but hugging her tightly, like a long-lost something. She tilted her chin up to keep the water from running down into her eyes and it put her mouth right against his adam's apple.

So she touched her lips to that knot, and he swallowed roughly. She smiled and did it again, letting her tongue come out to lick water from his skin.

"Hell," he rasped.

"I did say you might find yourself there," she reminded him, speaking right against his skin. It made him shiver, and now she felt his cock there, the mystery of its presence at her thighs. He might even - touch her with it. She could see how if she shifted her knees apart, he would be so - so hard and strong that he'd come right up to her sex.

God, she was trembling.

Castle slid his hand down her back and she tensed, expecting the touch to continue down over her ass, but he diverted his fingers around her hip. It tickled, it felt like nothing had ever felt before, and then he pressed his hand between them and adjusted himself.

"Oh, that's too bad," she sighed. 

Castle actually chuckled, strangled though it sounded, and when he withdrew his hand (that really was too bad, because the backs of his fingers bumping against her had felt erotic) she could feel his erection thumping where it pressed between their bellies.

"Oh, never mind," she whispered. "That's actually quite good."

He hummed something at her temple and embraced her again, his arm drawing her tighter so that considerable pressure must have come to bear against his cock. 

He had such mastery over the world, over himself, moving with such confidence through the room, through every experience - he always had a plan - that she wanted to make him... she wanted to unmake him. So she lifted a little on her toes so that her stomach rubbed against his cock.

Castle barked out a curse, his hips jerking against her.

She tingled everywhere - that feeling of heat flushing under her skin and making her lips numb. She wanted to - wanted something in her mouth, wanted to suck on - on his fingers and have him jerk against her again. Her heart pounded with it, she wanted that so badly.

"You - you gotta calm down," he scraped against her ear. His cheek was rough where he needed to shave. It made her shiver. She'd been with high school boys, she realized; she had felt smooth boys' lips against hers and smooth boys' cheeks tickle her. She had never been tantalized by the scruff of a five o'clock shadow.

She wanted to rub her whole body against his mouth, his cheeks. She wanted him to drop to his knees and drag a long, torturous trail up from her knee to her inside thigh until she could - sit on his face.

She didn't think anyone had ever felt like this before; it couldn't be like this, this intense and urgent. Chest to chest wasn't going to be enough, no matter what the hospital said (and she was used to ignoring what the medical types said).

He cupped the back of her neck and she had the oddest instinct to let him push her down, push her to his feet. He stroked at the bones of her skull where they protruded behind her ears, at her nape, and she felt her knees turning to jelly.

"Your heart's beating too fast," he said. "Beating so hard you're shaking in my arms."

"I - I want..."

"This will have to do for now, love," he whispered.

"Kiss me," she insisted, and already he was crushing his mouth against hers, filling her with his tongue. It was good, and wet, and it quenched some of the need but not nearly all. Not nearly.

She shifted her hands down and gripped his ass and he yelped into her mouth, groaning. She felt aggressive, bold, and she dragged her hand in between them and gripped his cock.

He cursed and slammed her back against the tile.

\-----

Kate mewled and pushed back on his chest, her body writhing under his, her face turned away.

He snapped to attention, released her with a jerk back, scraping both hands through his hair and bumping the stall door. It popped open and he stumbled on the raised lip of the shower, his spine hitting the tiled wall. 

Kate’s arms were pressed into her sides, her hands clutching her elbows, and her eyes slowly opened.

He struggled to breathe in the humid air, his hands in tight fists, his body thrumming so that his heartbeat pounded in his head.

She turned her head and her eyes met his and slid away, her hair in wet ropes around her face, water collecting on her skin. She was breathing shallowly.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “I shouldn’t have - I’m sorry.”

“My - my fault,” she croaked, eyes slamming shut again. She was shivering, even with the spray catching her stomach and thighs, and Castle realized cold air was billowing in through the open stall door.

He debated leaving the shower entirely, but she looked - unprotected standing there. He couldn’t leave with her looking like that. 

So he stepped back in, barely a step, and he closed the door behind him, hugging the wall so that he wouldn’t intrude on her space. “I’m sorry,” he said, hoping she could hear him over the rumble of the shower. “Kate, I’m-”

She shook her head and pressed a fist into his chest and he shut up.

She was breathing easier now, and even though she was pressed back against the tile, she had lost that posture of self-defense. She just looked cold. 

And incredibly alone.

“Kate, baby, come here,” he roughed, holding his hands out to her. Palms up, low, not expecting anything, not demanding. He just - he couldn’t crowd her. She’d have to come to him when she thought he could be trusted after-

Kate practically flung herself across the shower and into him, her body crashing against his. He touched her back lightly and she burrowed into him, her hands in fists at his ribs, her legs pushed between his.

“Okay,” he whispered softly, right at her ear. He felt bowed over her, protective; he thought he felt her shudder. “Okay, love. I got you.” He hoped he hadn’t scared her off touching him; he really - God, that had been amazing. Like being struck by lightning. Instant. “Next time, we can tie me down, sweetheart. Cuff my hands to the handicap railing, and you do what you want. No fear of me losing it. Well, no, I’ll still lose it - your hand on me? Yeah, I’ll lose it. But I won’t be able to attack you like a fucking wild an-”

She pressed her fingers to his mouth and he went silent, realized he was still flushed and - and anxious. And she was quieting him with just two fingers to his lips and her eyes on him.

“I should’ve warned you,” she murmured.

“Now where’s the fun in that?” he said, trying to smile at her. “But I think I hurt you, and I really didn’t want to hurt you, I didn’t-”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

He lifted a hand slowly and cupped the back of her head, fingers deep in her hair. “No?”

“No,” she said.

“Did I scare you?”

“I’m not afraid of you.” 

It was the second time she’d insisted on it, and he hated himself a little for having caused the statement twice now. Protesting too much. He rubbed at her scalp and tried not to let it be arousing, tried not to feel her breasts against him or the heat of her body, wet and firm, against his cock.

“I want to touch you,” she said. Her chin nudged into the top of his shoulder. “Is - that okay? I don’t want to hurt you either.”

“It’s gonna hurt,” he sighed. “But it’s a good hurt.”

“I... could - help you out-?”

“No, love.”

“But you - you’re already hard again,” she said. Her fingers played at his hip, nervous or fidgeting, he couldn’t tell.

“Just because I’m hard for you, love, doesn’t mean anything has to be done about it.”

She was quiet. The shower pulsed at their sides, the water tickling as it slipped down between his legs. He massaged her scalp with his fingers, trying to wait her out, but he wasn’t going to come when she couldn’t.

“But won’t - won’t it be worse for you?”

He shook his head. “Worse than what? Something painfully erotic about carrying this around for you, seeing your breasts in my hand and growing hard, having your body against mine and having to wait.”

“I - you were hard when I was nursing?”

He froze. His brain had deserted him entirely; he had no good answer to that.

“I don’t know if women get hard, but I was hard for you too,” she mumbled.

He laughed softly, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and tugging her closer. “Oh, love, that’s good to hear.”

“I even - I thought-” She made a soft little noises against his chest, like desperation. “I thought it’d be so nice to have your mouth there instead.”

Fuck.

\-----

She panicked the second it came out of her mouth. She panicked and froze, and he must have felt how she stiffened, because he just held her and said nothing like she hadn’t just said something completely obscene.

His mouth on her.

She needed to keep her mouth closed. Fuck, she just stepped right into it at every turn. She couldn’t possibly - he couldn’t possibly - it was a fucking mess and she just blurted things out that were impossible.

Shut up, Katie. Shut the hell up.

She had learned, hadn’t she? She had spent a miserable few months not understanding how to keep hold of her bleeding shredded soul, how to keep from being wounded again and again. But she had learned, and she had shut her fucking mouth, and she had turned her face to stone, dammed it all up. 

Control.

And yet with a little sunlight on her face and the boys falling asleep against her chest, suddenly she leaked from a hundred holes. The walls were breached, and she was being flooded. How had it fallen apart so quickly?

“You’re so exhausted you’re shaking,” he said, hands on her shoulders. He was putting her away, and she didn’t try to fight to get back because she had learned. She could fucking well control herself.

She felt her calves hit the tile and then open air at her back and she fell down - sat down hard - surprised.

He chuckled and nodded to the seat under her. “Built in seat, remember?”

“Forgot,” she answered briefly. Forgot in the scintillating vision before her eyes, his groin right before her. She could-

No. Damn it. Control.

“Shampoo here is cheap,” he muttered.

“Better than soap,” she quipped, and then closed her eyes as she realized. Fuck, just shut the hell up.

“Right,” he croaked. She was horrifying him at every turn. He touched her shoulder and she opened her eyes, wondering how she might apologize for reminding him of his own father’s role in her last three years.

Three years. 

God, three years. She probably shouldn’t tell him that she’d had timed ten minute cold showers for the last three years. Every other day.

Suddenly Castle was crouching at her feet with both hands on her thighs, practically prostrate before her. The water didn’t even touch her, but she’d had so many of those cold showers that a little breeze coming in over the top of the door was nothing at all.

What had her trembling was Castle.

“Kate?”

“Just a little overwhelmed,” she admitted, bowing her head and gripping the edge of the seat.

“I’ll wash your hair, then. You just sit there, love, and ride it out.”

That’s what she had to do. Ride it out. It would pass eventually, it would fade. All of this would fade. It wasn’t real; it was just - desperation meeting convenience.

Three years. Alone. Untouched. Not even kindness. Of course she felt like - like doing all kinds of things with him. To him.

His hands came to her head, cradled her skull with such infinite tenderness that she was crying again.

Damn it. Couldn’t she just - for once - harden her damn heart? She used to be so fucking good at it. She had been a pro.

Kate blinked and let the tears slip down, hoping the shower hid them, and Castle pressed a knee into the seat and braced himself at her side. At least this way his groin wasn’t right there in front of her, torturing her with all the things she shouldn’t have.

And now the water struck her knees and splashed up, ricochets along her arms and chest, and the tears on her cheeks faded into the spray.

Why couldn’t he have just let her give him a hand job and be done with it? 

Now it was just - sympathetic grazes of his hands and the pity in his eyes. 

She was tired. She was just so tired.

\-----

She was so docile for the rest of the shower. He was relieved. Just her hand on his cock had made him feral, like he hadn’t fucked in years (oh, shit, that’s what it was, wasn’t it? he had felt her desperation in him the moment her hand had closed around him). 

At least with her quiet and biddable, he could wash her hair and rinse the shampoo, conditioner in the ends to get the tangles out - at least he could be actually helpful and not just mauling her like an animal. He was even able to spread suds down her arms and thighs, coasting his hands very very lightly under her breasts before rinsing her under the spray.

After he shut the water off, the shower was silent, and she looked asleep on her feet.

When they came out of the bathroom dressed in clean clothes, Colin had already put both boys in the extra bed, sitting there with them as he fiddled with that damn bullet on its chain. The slug had been dug out of his hip after Black had shot him that one time - and Colin couldn’t let go of it, even now.

Castle guided Kate to the empty hospital bed and she crawled in and turned her back to the room, collapsing in on herself. He brushed back her wet hair from her face and her eyes drifted over his but without much recognition. He kissed her temple because kissing her mouth seemed like taking without permission when she was like this.

“Sleep, love,” he murmured. “I’ve got the boys.”

She closed her eyes, and it was like she’d turned her light out. He hadn’t realized until this moment, but that was the thing that had bothered him in the shower - and before. How she shut herself off, out. Shut the world out.

But Colin was being morose on the other bed, and so Castle straightened up and headed for his brother. He sat down on the mattress beside him, just enough room, and he laid a hand on Wyatt’s back and made sure he was shoulder to shoulder with Colin.

“Doesn’t work that way,” his brother said. He glanced to Wyatt. “And he’s not the brother who could do it.”

And yet it did work, Castle saw. Already Colin’s nervous irritation was fading. He dropped his hands into his lap and stared down at the bullet.

“He’s gone, you know,” Castle said. It bore repeating. 

Colin grunted. “That girl - that girl you won’t fuck - she killed him where we couldn’t.”

Castle slapped the back of his hand against Colin’s pec, stinging the nipple as he did, knowing he did. “Don’t be crude.”

“Crude?” Colin said, looking astonished. “Just facts. She wanted you and you rejected her. No closed doors in your head tonight. Nor hers, and she’s up here too, you know.”

“Wait. Hang on. You felt - that?”

“Did you expect me not to?”

“No, I know you can’t help - I meant, well, you came back drugged and so I expected to have a little more of a closed door.”

“Yeah,” Colin admitted. The drugs were like reverse-ADD medication, or so Colin liked to call them. They made his brain so busy and buzzing that he couldn’t focus long enough to pick up all those sensations from his brothers. He didn’t receive anyone but them - and now the boys, and apparently Kate.

“Back up,” Castle frowned. “She wanted me and I rejected her? Who the fuck told you that? Not me.”

“Not you. Her.”

“She thinks I rejected her?”

“She felt rejected, big brother. That’s all I know.”

“Damn it,” he growled, wishing he could hit something. His head jerked up to look at Kate, suddenly wondering if she was really asleep. Well if she wasn’t- “I didn’t reject her, I nearly fucking broke her neck in there. Things I want to do to her - not safe in a shower. Not safe with her - her-”

“Medical condition,” Colin supplied. And then he subtly nudged Castle’s arm, a press of an elbow and nothing more, and yet he let Castle know everything.

Yes, Kate was awake, and yes she’d heard and received. And hopefully felt better, which seemed likely based on Colin’s quiet. 

“Damn,” he sighed. He hoped that could be the end of things - or no, a beginning really. He’d like to see what happened with them when those eight weeks were over, and yet if she healed in soul as she would in body, then he thought she might not want anything to do with him.

As she probably should.

“You’re quite a lot more than I usually have to handle,” Colin told him. He was smirking, Castle thought, though he saw how his brother winced because of him.

Castle was the machine, Castle was the one it was safe for Colin to relax around - because Castle kept himself contained. 

Apparently no longer. Damn. “Yeah, sorry, little brother.” He’d somehow been opened up to things he’d never had to deal with before, and it was coming at him fast. He wasn’t exactly sure how to deal with the way she made him feel, how intense everything was. He was overreacting to the least little thing, and he knew it.

He just couldn’t stop it.

Colin hunched forward to rest his elbows on his knees, rubbing the fingers of one hand against his palm. He turned back to look at Castle. “Feels good to hurt. Doesn’t it? Feels good.”

Castle paused, glanced once to Kate feigning sleep on the bed, protective and defensive, wanting to know exactly where he stood before she went further. The thin profile of her hip where it rose under the blanket, the wet lank of her hair.

“Yeah,” Castle said finally. “Does. Even hurting for her is more...”

“It’s just more,” Colin said. 

Castle let out a slow breath. “Makes the whole world more.”

\-----

She made him hurt.

Well, of course she did.

Kate laid in the bed with the covers pulled up to her neck and her arms pressed in against her body, her knees drawn into her chest, drifting in and out of awareness. She wasn’t exactly asleep, but she couldn’t quite wake up.

She knew what this was, that total emotional shut down she’d perfected over the years, distancing herself so completely not even she could bring herself up. She’d had very little reason to bring herself up, not then, not inside the facility, but sometimes she’d scared herself with how easy it would be to quit.

Quit the world.

She didn’t want to quit now. Makes the whole world more, and well, somehow he was doing the same to her. Everything had sharp edges now, everything was bound to catch her and snag her and unravel her, but maybe that was a good thing. She didn’t want to be this anymore.

She had grieved for her mother when it had finally worked through to her heart. For months she had battled and fought and screamed and - and killed (she had killed that man, unintentionally, hadn’t meant to, the first one she’d killed) just to get out, get out, get back to that alley where her mother was bleeding to death.

And then one day it had clicked. It had been months. Her mother was long dead. It was no good breaking herself against the locked door - bide your time; always resist. 

And now. What was she resisting? What was she waiting for?

Well, she was damaged inside. She had eight weeks of healing, eight weeks to bide her time, but after it was over - there would be decisions to make, her own life to will and to direct... and the boys tangled up in her choices too. Tangled up now for good or for bad.

And him. This man who, even now, wanted to feel what the world was like with her, good or bad - and he seemed aware there’d be a lot of bad.

If she could open her eyes, she would want him with her. In this bed or standing beside it, whatever he might do. Maybe he’d take her hand and kiss her fingers; she liked that.

She would like anything.

Anything.

And she was free. She was out of there now, so why couldn’t she? Why not do it?

So Kate rolled over in the bed and she saw both of them looking at her, studying her or waiting on her, she didn’t know. But Castle withdrew his hand from Wyatt’s back and stood, came to her side just like she had imagined it. His eyes were worried - about her - and he leaned in and braced his elbow near her head.

“Hey,” he murmured. He stroked her wet hair out of her eyes, detangling strands from her lashes, before softly kissing her cheek. “Not tired?”

“Still tired,” she mumbled, opening her hand to curl it in the collar of his shirt. He smiled a little, his own fingers massaging her scalp, the back of her neck. Both hands touching her like something precious.

Not fragile, though. No. Precious. She was surprised she could feel the difference so clearly. 

“I get to go home tomorrow,” she said, trying to smile back. But then home resonated through her and her smile dropped.

“We’ll make it home,” he said softly. “I can get anything you need, the boys need, just let me know.”

“But it’s your home-”

“No,” he said softly. “It’s not, love. It’s just - a place I escape to. But now that - now that Black is gone, I don’t have to hide.”

She watched the way that went over his face, the shock of it being spoken aloud. Maybe he hadn’t thought of it before now, despite the way he’d talked about his father. Even if Castle had told her she had set him free, how much had he actually absorbed that as fact?

“I don’t have to hide anything,” he said again. He straightened up and glanced over his shoulder; she could see Colin at the foot bed that held the boys. “Col. Did you - think of that?”

Colin shrugged and scraped both hands down his face. “I don’t even know. Not a good idea to start making announcements about certain - things.”

Announcements. People would have to know, would find out.

“The boys are in this too,” Kate said sharply, pushing up on one elbow. “They’re - like you.” She suddenly felt the world crowding in on them. “I won’t let them go back to being science experiments. They’re not-”

“No one is making them into science experiments,” Castle said harshly. “And not you either, Colin. That remains between the three of us - well, five, I guess, since the boys will have to know. They’ll need your help, Colin.”

His brother gave James and Wyatt a long look, then glanced back to them. “I never had help.”

“Which is why you’ll be there for them in the future. Because it’s-”  
“I still don’t have help. You don’t want me near your kids,” Colin husked. “Nowhere near them. I am fucked up. You know that. I am-”

“I don’t want them fucked up,” Kate interrupted. “So of course I want you around. Someone ought to know what they’ll be going through, what they need? I’m no good for them with any of this. I don’t even know what they should be eating. But you - at least you’d know something helpful.”

Castle reached back and gripped her upper arm, helped her sit upright as she struggled for strength. He gave her a grateful look, and then turned back to Colin. “She’s half right. They’re going to need the guidance you can give - even if you’re just someone who knows what they’re going through.” And then Castle looked to her, frowning fiercely. “You’re not no-good for them, Kate. Of the three of us, I’m the one with the least amount of helpfulness here.”

She gave a helpless shrug and pulled her knees up, leaning against her raised legs. She was tired, and she didn’t have the strength to fight him on this. “You don’t have to stay. I never expected-”

“What-”

“Can we all just agree that we’re equally fucked up?” Colin said quickly. “All of us have fucking baggage on top of baggage. Issues. Kate’s gonna feel inadequate and Castle’s gonna feel guilty and responsible, and I’m pretty much drowning in anger and all your issues, so fuck it. Who cares. I’m in.”

Kate blinked, but it - well, he made sense. Who cared? What did it matter in the long run how fucked up they were? The boys were already what they were, had been since conception, whatever this project was and what it had done to them. It was in their DNA. No escaping it. 

Fatalistic, maybe, but-

Colin slid off the bed and stood looking at the boys. “Maybe - now that John Black is dead and gone - maybe these two will get a fucking chance.”

Castle shifted forward as if to catch him, but Colin side-stepped him and moved for the door. 

“Colin,” she said quietly, concerned about him. How unstable he seemed. His face was hard-boned and hidden.

“I gotta get out of here,” Colin answered them. “I just-”

“You’ll be back tomorrow morning?” she said. “And you’ll - come with us?”

“I’m not into threesomes, Beckett.” He saluted Castle as if giving up his watch, and then he opened the door and slipped through it.

Kate let out a sigh, worried now about him as well. And the boys, what happened to them if no one had answers, no one knew what the issues were, or how to help-

“He’ll be there in the morning,” Castle said quietly. “But it’ll be like this, Kate. He can’t be - can’t be fixed in one place.”

Kate frowned but she caught the way Castle was looking at her, hesitant, resignation stamped deep. Like he was used to giving up the things he wanted. That made her heart hurt - in a strange and parallel empathy. She knew that feeling.

“But you can be?” she said.

When he looked lost, she took his hand. He squeezed back, his throat working. “I can be?”

“Fixed in one place,” she answered. “Because I - I really would like you with me.”

Castle ducked in close and instead of the kiss she’d been expecting, another chaste thing on her cheek, he nudged his nose against hers, pressing the side of his face to hers so that she had to close her eyes to keep from trembling.

“I’m with you, Kate.”

\-----


	7. Chapter 7

He woke her right after the morning shift nurse made her first vitals check. James had been awake for an hour or so, quiet but obviously not happy. He kept rubbing his face against Castle’s shirt, mouth opening, and it didn’t take a real parent to figure out that the kid was hungry. He hadn’t been fed much last night.

The second that nurse shut the door, he was off the extra bed with James and heading for her side to wake her.

Or, at least he tried to. Kate twitched but stayed sunk into the thin mattress of the hospital bed, lying on her stomach with her face buried in a pillow. Castle shifted James to the other arm and reached out, laid his hand on her back.

“Kate? Hey, you said to wake you...”

Her eyes slid open, a process, and then she blinked.

“Hey, Kate, love, you awake?”

“No.”

He laughed softly, rubbing her back as she slowly began to move. Kate got a knee under her and groaned, shifting to her side.

“You okay?”

“Sort of,” she sighed. “Twinges.” She raised an arm to James. “Come here, baby.”

Castle lowered James to the mattress and shifted a hip to sit beside her. “No, not-uh, Kate. No lifting him. Give me a second and I’ll get in place.”

She sighed at him, her arm winding around James’s shoulders but not attempting to pick him up. Castle crawled in behind her and she wormed forward, trying to give him room. He had to lean forward and catch James before the boy could stick his head in the railing.

Kate was shrugging one arm out of her t-shirt, the one Hunt had brought in his bag of supplies. Castle dragged the boy towards them and James caught sight of Kate and burrowed his face at her chest. 

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Castle muttered, out of his mouth before he could think.

Kate glanced back at him and Castle busied himself with getting James into position. She was giving him a curious look, but he didn’t dare bring it up again, not after the shower. James mewled at her chest and Kate turned back to the boy, adjusting her breast to give him the nipple.

James made a growling noise as he latched on, and it made them both laugh. 

Last night with Wyatt, Castle had tried to keep his hands off, give her a break from him, but this morning, early and Kate still half-asleep, she seemed - cuddly.

She was still warm and sleep-loose, her body heavy against his. He held James in place with just one arm, easier now, well-rehearsed. James was hungry so he wasn’t moving in his grip, no squirming, so Castle had one hand free.

And since she seemed so inviting...

He rubbed the backs of his fingers at the side of her arm, kissing her shoulder. The material of her shirt was bunched up at her neck, her breast and arm exposed, and he kept his face close to hers, watching.

He’d never get tired of this. The way she relaxed into him like she’d been needing it, the way her breast was revealed, how natural it was, how beautiful. Erotic in some ways and sweet in others.

And then his heart caught at the sight of the little hand that curled against Kate’s chest and those blue eyes that watched her with such trust. The boy’s gaze moved to Castle then, tracing over his face as if memorizing him.

“Hey,” he said quietly. His voice made Kate twitch, but when he lifted his head to move away from her, she reached back and caught his ear, kept him with her. He turned into her touch and kissed the inside of her arm.

“Just surprised me,” she murmured. “You can talk to him.”

“I was just-”

“He likes our voices,” she said. “See? He flicks his fingers against my skin when he’s happy.”

Castle watched as the boy did exactly that, as if scratching at her, back and forth, those little nails on those little fingers.

“He does?”

“Yeah, and do you know how cool it is that I know that?” She gave him a shy little smile and knocked her head lightly against his jaw. 

He adored that. God, it filled him up when she squirmed and turned into him like he was at all what she wanted. Sharing with him. “Pretty cool, Kate,” he said. “Means you make him happy a lot.”

She beamed at him and then turned down to James. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I guess I do.”

Kate stroked her fingers over the side of James’s face and the boy’s eyelids dipped, his mouth going slack for a second as if her touch put him under a spell.

Yeah, Castle knew that feeling too.

\-----

She had felt a little superfluous this morning as Castle got the boys diapered and dressed. And then he had let them down to the floor, and now he was just herding them away from the door, away from the bathroom, away from the biohazard trash. She sat uselessly on the bed in a thin t-shirt and soft athletic pants that Colin had packed for her (she was trying not to think about how he knew what underwear to get, what size sports bra), and she just watched.

Castle was good with them, even outnumbered as he was. He seemed to know in advance what would be bright and attractive to the boys, and he headed them off before they could get into trouble. James liked to run across the room and slam both hands against the door, then look back at Castle as if he expected a reaction. Wyatt just clung to the edge of the extra bed, made tentative forays into the room before going back to his spot.

They were simply waiting on the social worker to bring the discharge paperwork.

Kate slowly put a foot down to the floor, slid off the bed. She was tired of feeling like a patient, a medical experiment, and she’d had enough of watching without being able to touch.

She couldn’t lift the boys, but she could follow them around like Castle was doing, keep them out of trouble. They needed toys and a safe place to roam around. She didn’t even know what they’d had in the facility; she’d only ever seen them in their isolette room.

Wyatt gave a little gasp when he saw her standing beside the bed. As if he’d already forgotten she was there, so unused to having her. He released the blanket where he’d been hanging on and came running to her, crashing into her knees.

Kate bent over and cupped the back of his head, smiling down at him. “Hey, there. You forgot I was here?”

Wyatt rubbed his face into her knees and clung to her pants (God, they felt so strange, the cheap material, the swish of rayon, track pants like she was heading to the gym). She combed her fingers through the flop of Wyatt’s light brown hair, loving the face he gave her, that wanting-her whine in his throat.

“Kate.”

She glanced over and saw Castle looking at her, hesitant, and she waved him off. “I’m fine.” He didn’t seem to believe her, or maybe he just didn’t know what to think about it, but he didn’t stop her either.

Wyatt pushed into her legs, standing on her bare feet with his own socked feet, pressing his face between her shins as he gripped her pants. She laughed at him, surprised by how he was trying to worm right into her, and then she squatted down and put him off.

Just enough that she could sit cross-legged on the floor and let him fall into her lap. She hugged him to her, humming as he smacked his lips and hummed with her.

“Hey, heads up,” Castle called.

She turned and saw James running for her, wanting to join in, not be left out, and she opened an arm to him. He flew at her, jumped at the last second, so that she gasped and had to catch him, rocking back as he struck his knees into her thigh, his hard head against her chin.

“Whoa,” Castle muttered. “He’s rough.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Kate said, wincing as his little knee twisted into her quad. “Ouch, James. Can you sit like Wyatt? Sit down in my lap, baby.”

James wriggled and bounced on her thigh, his toes gripping, but he buried his face into her neck so that her messy hair fell around him, almost like he was trying to hide. He used to curl his fingers in her hair in the room when she nursed, watching her until his eyes grew too heavy.

She touched the back of his head, squeezing him between her shoulder and neck.

Castle still stood a few paces away, watching them with his arms crossed over his chest. He seemed unwilling to interrupt, so Kate nodded to the chair. “Sit. You’re making us all nervous, looming.”

“Shit,” he said and immediately dropped down into the chair.

“I didn’t mean like - like that,” she sighed. “Just, um...” Ready to take them away. The authority in control of a supervised visit.  
Damn. Maybe she had meant it like that, and she hadn’t even known it.

“It’s okay,” he said quickly. “I’m still trying to figure out how - uh - where I belong here.”

With me. But instead she glanced down to the boy in her lap, Wyatt sitting so docilely even as he whined for her attention. James was stepping on and off her thigh, some kind of game he was playing, his fists in her shirt for balance. 

The door clicked and both boys stiffened. Wyatt jerked around and huddled into her, hiding his face, and James wrapped both arms around her neck and clung. Her heart flipped.

A woman came through the door, lab-coat pockets so heavy they gaped, Kate’s chart in her hands as well as a thick, cheerful folder. She shut the door with a tired-looking smile, but she moved into the room and leaned a hip against the foot of the bed, waving her fingers at the boys.

“Hey, I’m Patti. I’m your case manager, and a registered nurse as well, so feel free to ask me anything. I’m here to talk about post-op care, get a feel for what we might need to set up for home.” 

“I’m Kate,” she said, feeling stupid after she said it. Of course this woman knew who she was.

“Good to meet you, Kate,” Patti said, easy with it. Her head swiveled to Castle as if he was next and Kate realized she had no idea what Castle had called himself.

“Richard,” he said tightly. And then glanced over to her with a little smile, drawing her into the game. “Richard Hunt.”

Hunt. Huh, okay. She wondered if that was the name on the IDs Colin had made for them. And what about - her life? Her real identity. Would it still be waiting for her? Or was Katie Beckett dead and gone?

James whined against her neck and shifted, curling his body into her chest. She struggled to balance him, ducking her chin down to the top of his head.

Patti gave them another smile, this one a little brighter as she looked at the boys. “Aw, you guys love your mama, don’t you? You’re cute. Well, we’re going to work on getting her home. What do you think about that?”

James hummed against her chest, but he lifted his head and peered out at Patti, studying her. Wyatt stayed dug in against her ribs, not moving.

“They’re shy,” Castle said with a shrug. “That’s James, and then Wyatt behind him.”

“Hey, James. Wyatt. I understand shy. My little grandson runs and hides when people come to the door.” 

There were knowing smiles all around, though Kate felt like she was faking it somehow, not quite able to get back to that kind of normalcy - if that was normal. But it would be, wouldn’t it? That would be something like her life, with these two boys, for the next few weeks. At least until someone actually normal could take them.

James was practically choking her with his hold; she had to pry his arm from around her throat.

Patti came forward with the folder held out, handing it to Castle. “This is your care packet. I’m going to hit the highlights, Dad, so don’t worry about reading it right now. Just keep up with it; you might want to know something when you get home, realize you missed what I said - but that will tell you.”

Kate was astonished that it had gone out of her hands just that fast. But - but he was posing as her husband, and her arms were full of clingy boys, and so - well - of course Castle would take the after-care information packet and handle that for her.

She had put herself at a disadvantage though; she could see that now. Sitting down on the floor, taking the boys all to herself; Castle had been trying to do baby-sitting duty, to leave her available for this conversation. Castle had known.

But Kate. Kate wasn’t used to taking care of herself. That was the pathetic truth. She’d been handled for three years, wheeled into a room here, wheeled out, walked down the hall, escorted to the babies, dragged out, anesthetized, numbed, controlled.

She would have to learn how to take back her life, how to have those habits of responsibility - free will.

“Well, first of all, Kate, how are you feeling this morning?”

“Fine,” she replied automatically. Instant answer - always the right answer. But then she swallowed and tried to take a real assessment. “Tired. Aching.”

“That should last for another couple days,” Patti answered. “And the tiredness is normal, but it is a reminder from your body to cut it some slack. So if you’re tired, take a nap. I’m sure Richard can handle it for a couple hours, right, Dad?”

“Of course,” Castle said immediately. “They’ll survive. I can do it.”

Kate had no trouble with that - the boys were just surviving with her too. It wasn’t like she had better parenting skills than he did. “I know you will.” She glanced to Patti. “Um, how - set is that... six weeks and no lifting thing?”

“That’s set, and I wouldn’t push it,” she answered. “I know it’s hard to keep from tending to them. But we don’t want to see you back in here, Kate.” Patti had a smile to alleviate the seriousness of her tone, but she was right.

“I don’t want to be back here,” Kate answered. “So. I won’t lift them.”

And pelvic rest. She was a patient all over again, and even though she was out of that facility, it was hard to believe, hard to convince herself that she wasn’t just going from one prison to another.

Patti was smiling at them both as she went through the highlights: expect light spotting but no clotting, no discharge, mild cramping but nothing severe. She was basically telling Kate to take it easy and keep it low-key, and then - last but certainly not least - delay sex.

Castle sat forward a little, his concentration clearly on the case manager. Patti glanced to him pointedly. “You hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Castle said immediately.

Kate chewed on her bottom lip, wished like hell she’d gotten Patti alone. What exactly and how exactly and just... how strict did it have to be? Last night, that sensation, that clutch of muscles inside her...

The nurse came forward and held out her hands to James, and shockingly the boy went to her, almost like he thought he had to. But then Patti turned and dumped James into Castle’s lap, and Castle caught him, sitting back with a jerk, clutching the boy with wide hands.

“Go take this one down to the nurses’ station, Dad, and get them both ice cream. They’ll love it.”

Castle gave her a startled look, but apparently he was just as biddable as she was, both of them too long under Black’s thumb, because he stood mechanically and gripped James, glancing back at her over his shoulder.

“Ice cream,” Kate said, nodding. “Strawberry.”

He paused at the door. “Yeah?”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

Castle gave her a soft smile as he left, just as surprised as she was to know her favorite ice cream. She hadn’t thought about ice cream in years, and God, it sounded great.

Strawberry ice cream and hot fudge drizzled-

“All right,” Patti said, the second the door closed. She sat down in Castle’s spot and put her hands on her knees. “You have questions.”

Kate flushed and glanced to Wyatt; the boy had cuddled into her, unwilling to move, but he looked more than just shy. 

He didn’t want to let her go, not now that he had her. He knew they were out of their normal routines, and he’d gotten spoiled by having her - they both had - and now he was afraid he’d have to give her up.

Kate had gotten spoiled too. All the touching they’d done. She and Castle, back and forth. “I... have questions,” she said, swallowing. “I know that - no sex. They said no sex for six weeks-”

“Give it eight,” Patti said, smiling softly at her. “I saw your chart, saw the hysteroscopic pictures they took. Looked bad, Kate, though I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that.”

Looked bad. She’d done that to herself, pushed that wire up inside her cervix and scraped at her uterus until-

Kate pressed her lips together and breathed slowly through her nose.

Patti sat forward. “I don’t say this often, but - Kate - I really wish you would tell us the name of the OB who did your D&C. I know we’ve talked to Richard a couple times, and he was insistent we not push you, but-”

“It’s fine,” she got out, panic jerking to life in her throat.

“It wasn’t fine, Kate. The doc did an awful job of it - there was actual trauma-”

“I - I can’t - think about it,” she said tightly. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth, her heart pounding so badly it was almost the only thing she could hear.

“Loss is hard,” Patti said quietly. “And you’ve had a loss. But this might scar your uterus, Kate. If it scars, and you have to have surgery, you might never be able to get pregnant-”

“I don’t care,” she choked out, shaking her head. “I don’t want to ever-”

She was trying not to shake, trying so badly not to let Patti see how traumatized she was from this. She was afraid they wouldn’t let her go if they thought she needed psychiatric care. She felt very dangerously close to that dark line.

“I would like,” she said carefully, “to put this behind me. I can’t get it back - there’s nothing I can do that would change what happened. I just want to go home. I just want - the boys.”

Patti leaned forward and patted her knee, coming all the way down to the floor. “All right, Kate. I understand.” Such compassion on her face that Kate might cry. Patti smiled softly. “You have other questions? Before your husband gets back. Though the nurses know to keep him there a little while.”

Kate gave a small, tight laugh, nodding. “Um. Is - pelvic rest... does that mean - he said it meant, um, I can’t climax. Is that true?”

“No contractions of the uterus,” Patti said kindly, no-nonsense. “You don’t want to pull on those stitches. But at three weeks, you’ll go in to your OB - I sincerely hope you pick a new OB - and she or he will take a look and that estimate might be revised.”

“The stitches will - come out?”

“They’ll dissolve. You might see pieces-” Patti laughed at the look on her face. “It’s not so bad. Promise. You won’t feel like sex anyway, for a few weeks.”

Kate wasn’t sure about that. She had this urge to-

“So, I’ll say three weeks of complete pelvic rest,” Patti kept on. “No orgasms. But. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy yourself. Just be careful not to let it get too far. And absolutely no penetration. Of any kind.”

Kate nodded, bobbing her head, her cheeks flushed. She wondered, crazily, if she might have ever talked about this with her mom. If she’d met someone at college maybe and brought him home and it was serious, things were serious, would she have asked her mom what a normal sex life was like?

She wasn’t sure. At 19, she’d been so much against her mother, pushing away, rebelling, struggling to be independent, wanting out of her mother’s dark shadow. Her dad had understood her, had known how she’d wanted to be her own person. Her father hadn’t loved the motorcycle, but he’d understood.

Her mother had been so furious when Kate had gotten the tattoo. But her dad had only shaken his head.

She would never have asked her dad about this. Oh God. But someone - there had to be someone she could ask...

Kate realized her world had narrowed to two small boys, a man she lusted after like a teenager, and his brother who couldn’t stand to be in the same room with them for longer than a few hours.

Great.

“You okay, Kate?” Patti asked, touching her knee again.

Kate nodded. “Um, just - trying to figure out how far I can go before it’s too far?”

Patti laughed quietly. “Well. That’s healthy. Talk to him about it, Kate. He might not be willing to do certain things when there’s the worry of causing a climax. But he might have ideas of his own of what you guys can do, without getting that worked up.”

“Oh.” Hell, she was not asking him-

Well. Maybe she should. She needed to start speaking up - take charge, take back responsibility for herself and her body, make her own damn decisions again.

She should tell him. I want to touch you, I want to do things to you. Because she did. She wanted - wanted whatever she could get before it all collapsed. Before reality crashed in on them.

She had three weeks before she was supposed to have an OB’s check-up. And then a re-evaluation and maybe-

“Just be sure you get enough rest,” Patti reminded her. “Sleep when you can, take naps when the boys do. Don’t over-exert yourself.”

Kate nodded. She would do that. She didn’t want to wind up back here. But she did want her freedom, her life back. It wasn’t going to be what it had been, wasn’t going to be her nice safe parents and studying and college craziness and the parties with Maddie and fights with her mom and her father’s sighing smile as he shook his head at her latest. 

It would be different. It would be new. But it was hers - for eight weeks - for eight weeks it was hers.

\-----

Castle couldn’t help touching her. The orderly pushed the wheelchair towards the pick-up exit, the boys riding in Kate’s lap. Castle carried their bag and worried that Colin wouldn’t be where he’d promised, worried that Kate would try to stand with the boys, worried that he would miss something important - some trigger, some problem, some issue.

His anxiety might be only part of why he kept touching her - reassure himself she was okay. The other part-

Watching her eat the strawberry ice cream while Castle had been signing paperwork - fuck. The deepest ring of hell. He’d been so distracted that he had almost signed their real names. And then James had smacked his sticky hand against the top page and Castle had been forced to peel off the paper and read the words that had come off on James’s palm to complete the form.

Her hand suddenly lifted and knocked his off of her head. He blushed and resolved to do better, not be such a patronizing asshole. 

Ice cream. Strawberry ice cream. He was going to stock his freezer in the stuff. And she’d said something this morning that had blown a hole in his guts, this mattress is so nice, and he’d felt that fucking mattress, and damn. Damn, he needed to get an actual bed rather than just a mattress and box springs on the floor.

Fuck. There were more things he needed, he knew there were, but what else?

“Here we are,” the orderly said. “Do you have a ride-?”

“Yes,” he said, “my brother...”

And then there it was; a black SUV with tinted windows had pulled in to the pickup lane. The hospital doors opened automatically and the orderly pushed the wheelchair out onto the covered patio. Colin came around the hood and stood there, glancing back and forth between them, looking a lot more solid than he had last night.

“Hey there,” he said, waving to Kate. It was a little odd, but then he reached down and took Wyatt from her lap (he’d remembered which was which, and Castle was so grateful to know that Colin was being good). He opened the back door and then turned to Castle with a little shrug.

Castle had no idea how to work the carseats. He should have... fuck. He should have fucking looked that up. “Be right there,” he said, hoping the orderly would get out of here first.

He came in close and picked up James, leaned in and brushed his lips over Kate’s cheek. “Get in, Kate. Make him leave.”

She was bewildered for a second; he saw it cross her face, and then her eyes darted past him to the open back door and the two carseats. She shifted forward and stood up, turning back to the orderly with a touch on the man’s forearm.

“Thank you,” she said, a dazzling smile that - for a second - made Castle insanely, terribly jealous of that man.

But he turned his back on them and moved around the car to the other side, opening the door on the second car seat. He dumped James in it, and the bag in the floor, thinking to go back for her, but Kate had already stepped up behind him and now slipped between the boys’ seats.

It was a Land Rover LR4, boxy and serious, and the three rows of seating had ample room. The back seat would fold down into storage space if needed, and Castle was actually pretty pleased with his brother’s choice. He watched Kate as she settled on one side, and then when the orderly had gone back into the hospital, Castle pressed James back into the car seat.

“Anyone know how to work these things?” Castle muttered.

Colin snorted. “I had the baby supplier put them in for me. Did you think I didn’t ask how they fucking worked?” And then Colin leaned in with a smirk and pulled straps around Wyatt’s arms and snapped it professionally in front and then jammed it down between the boy’s legs.

“Um. That. Looked dangerous.”

“I am not coming over there and doing it for you,” Colin said.

Castle grimaced and saw Kate as he turned his face back to James; she was smiling a little, like she was trying to hide it. “You get up here and do it,” he muttered. But then her face fell and he felt like shit for saying it, even though he hadn’t been - it was just, they were all in this together, and now-

She shifted to his side of the car and leaned in over James in the car seat. Her hands took one of the straps from him and he saw her chewing on the inside of her cheek as she tried to do it from behind.

“Kate, I-”

“Eight weeks, so, I’ll have to know how, too, right?”

Eight weeks? He didn’t know what that meant. “I didn’t-”

“Oh, look,” she said, brightening. “I got it.”

He glanced at James and saw the boy was strapped in, though he thought - for a second - that there was a heck of a lot of room between James’s outside thighs and the seat. Was it supposed to be so loose?

He reached in and tugged on the straps and they were secure, so he shrugged and smiled at Kate. “You got it.”

She ducked, shy smile as she pushed her hair back behind her ear. “Yeah. Not so bad.”

“Pretty great, love.” He grinned at her and wished he could crawl over the seat and kiss her. 

But probably a bad idea. Instead, Castle glanced at his brother, who was smirking again, and nodded to the driver’s seat. “You. I’ll be in the back with Kate.”

Colin sighed, but he must have known that he’d be driving because he still had the keys. He shut the door on Wyatt and came around, giving Castle time to crawl between the boys’ seat and into the back. Kate was scooting back to far side behind Wyatt.

He climbed in, kicking the bag to the back floorboard for easy access, and then he leaned in to Kate. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. Her eyes flicked to the window past his head, and the sunlight, he figured, and the whole world waiting. “Nervous. But yeah.”

He smiled softly, touched the side of her face with his fingertips. “Nothing to be nervous about. You’re gonna be great, love. We are gonna be great.”

\-----

She kept her eyes on the window, on the light spilling in from above, between the buildings that reached forever over her head. She had grown up in this city, but she'd been taken out of it and kept narrow and close, and now the looming - the sheer metal and glass, even the brownstones - yanked her heart out by her throat.

She realized she had clutched Castle's hand, sweat sticking their palms together, and when she tried to let go and face it alone, he wouldn't. He wouldn't let go.

Kate was dizzy with the speed of passing buildings, one after another as the car moved at a good clip, and then the eerie stillness of a red light where people on the sidewalks passed faster than they did, the whole world crawling by. At one point, when Colin had tried to turn right onto the next block, the crosswalk was so filled with the people that the Land Rover was half in and half out of traffic, and then the light changed, and panic made a fist around her chest so tightly that she found herself pushed back against Castle.

The hard wall of his chest. Completely unyielding. Nowhere to escape. And strangely, that helped, being forced to confront it, her back to his wall, knowing he was right there, immobile.

And then pedestrians cleared and traffic flowed on, and Kate's tension unknotted just a little, but she kept her spine pressed against his shoulder. She knew without looking that he had leaned in too close just to give her that support, and he was staying right there, but she didn't confront it.

She was picking her battles. She had learned that these last three years as well. Pick your battles and live to fight another day. That one woman she had hated the most, who had looked at her like a specimen - no, worse, like a nasty thing that was catching, pregnancy - that woman had been the sole focus of her ire and malice for months. Every time she could, Kate had hurt her, lashed out at her, made her look bad - especially in front of Black. 

And then when the boys were born and the two attendants had laid them on her chest, and Black had come up at her head and she had known he'd been there the whole time, listening to her beg the doctors to save them, help them, that woman - that woman had been the one to take them from her. The unmitigated, nasty triumph in her eyes as she had peeled first Wyatt - the littlest and the one that had shivered so hard at being separated from her heat - and then James, and they'd been gone, so lost to her, and she'd been drained of everything-

But she'd had to pick her battles. Not that night (early morning?), not that moment while they were being taken from her. No. As much as she'd fought to remain aloof, uncaring, cold - she had been shut down through the whole pregnancy, untouchable, damn strong - she had known, now is not the time.

She had asked Black, giving him her weakness, she had asked him please, until they- and he had relented, one small nod of his head with his eyes glittering his conquest, and the woman had been forced to give them back. Those two boys, curled lumps on her bared chest, mouths open and mewling, squirming down until she had her hands on them and her voice in their ears, her sweat and exhaustion buffered by their small, wonderful, perfect bodies.

She had counted toes and fingers, she had splayed her hands over their backs and inspected their spines. Perfect, perfect. And in that weakness, she had been made so much stronger. Letting herself plead for them, letting herself be broken in front of Black for them had hardened her to steel - for them. For herself, to never be that broken and desperate and out of control again.

So she could lean against Castle, lean into his warmth and feel his hand laced with hers, and she could memorize the buildings and the silhouette of the black concrete against the dazzling sky, and she would be stronger for it in the long run. She had learned that lesson too.

The neighborhood began to change, and the skyscrapers evaporated, and the buildings were grim and grimed and gathering hunched shoulders like old men. She felt it in her guts, that sharp tug of panic, and she sat up straighter as the bars and clubs and sheet-metal-welders jerked past the window.

She knew. She knew exactly where they were.

"Stop!" she cried, lurching forward. "Stop, stop the car." She was already yanking at the seat belt, ripping it off, and she was wedging her body between the boys seats and prying the door open before Colin could pull over - double-parked outside a country-western bar that had probably never seen better days, had probably always been this awful.

Just as it had been three years ago.

She jumped out of the back and grunted when the impact rattled her, but she surged forward and shoved through two guys twitching against the brick wall, their hands on her as she pushed through, their gestures contrary, affronted. And then she was released very suddenly, and the two quickly disappeared, and she was down the alley with the rancid dumpster and the oil-slicked patched pavement, and she fell to her knees.

Right there. Still stained rust and black.

"Kate."

Hands and knees, heaving breaths that wouldn't come, blinking back the burn of tears, the blood in an alley.

"Kate, love, oh, Kate. I - how did you know?"

She rocked back on her heels and clutched her ribs, shivering in the bleak dimness, and she turned her face to the man who had followed her.

She flinched when he blocked out the sky, but he came down beside her, kneeling, not touching her, and she trembled.

"How did you know this was the place?" Castle sighed.

Kate opened her mouth but what came out was a terrible noise, and she slammed her eyes shut and snapped her jaw tightly and bowed her head, rocking.

"I'm so sorry, Kate. So sorry about your dad, I'm so-"

She froze, horror blooming sharp like a switchblade springing open in her guts. "What. My dad?"

Castle was silent for half a beat and then he cursed. "Your mom. Here? God damn it. This is where he took you."

She was shaking so hard she could barely force the words out. "My dad?"

Castle closed his eyes, then opened them again and he was swimming in that awful, pitying grief. "Oh, love. This is - where he - where they took him too."

\-----

Castle was afraid that if he touched her, it would all collapse. Everything she was using to hold herself together. And so they both just knelt there on the crumbling pavement of the alley where her parents' lives had been stolen, where her own had ended, and she sobbed breaths but not tears, gasping to control herself, not a single drop falling from her eyes.

He pressed his hands to his knees and watched her, at an angle so that he saw only the side of her face, and he kept an eye on the mouth of the alley in case the two drug dealers came back with numbers.

Colin was out there, but he had to stay with the boys in the car. Still, Colin would let him know. He didn't like being exposed like this, but there was no way he was taking Kate from here until she could stand on her own two feet and walk out.

But he knew she needed something to hold on to, something to wind the tattered threads of herself around and stop the unraveling, so he gave her his voice. Only thing he could give her.

"I can't help thinking where was I? three years ago. What was I doing that I missed this? And how many other events - tragedies - did I overlook because I had never wanted to know. He was a hard and brutal man, and I stayed as far from him as I could manage. But meanwhile, he was massing this little kingdom that he could be despot over, and I was his prince, his heir to the throne, and I let him - let him do whatever so long as I got off easy, so long as I could escape."

She had gone still, bleak and white-faced, blanched of color. She turned her head at his voice and those empty eyes regarded him. "Where'd you escape to?"

He wondered if he had looked that blank to the world, if he did to her now. "Inside my head," he answered. "Into whatever CIA operation I had going. The details, the mission, the little things I had to do, one after another. I'm a machine. I just do it. I just keep doing what he asks - asked. I do my job."

"Are you ever - off?" she husked.

He blinked. "What is off?"

"No vacation?"

He shrugged. "No."

"What about - when do you sleep?" Her palms were up and loose on her thighs, her face blank. She could have been asking about the weather.

"I don't sleep much," he said. "Don't need it."

She turned her head and stared at the brick wall, no longer speaking.

"I was in Ireland," he said. "Working an arms deal. I killed a woman who was trying to play double agent, and I strung up her body inside her boyfriend's house, her guts spilled open, strung her up by her hair."

Kate's eyes slid back to him.

He nodded, his throat thick. "I'm not a nice man, Kate." His fingers twitched to grab for her, but she didn't move. "I did things - have done. I think it's only dumb luck that it wasn't me who killed him."

"Would you have killed him? My dad."

Castle didn't know how to answer that. He was afraid of what happened if she knew the truth of him.

She closed her eyes. "My dad loved me."

"God, he did," Castle choked out. "He wouldn't let it go."

"I'm surprised he never told me."

"What?" he asked, and then understood. Black. "I am too."

"It seems the perfect thing to break me."

"Are you - are you breaking?" Castle said, making every effort to keep from grabbing her and - and pressing her against him. Like that would at all help her.

"Maybe," she said, tilting her head back. "Maybe I am."

"Your mom loved you too," he said, and he heard the question in it because he didn't know. Mothers were supposed to, but he didn't know.

"She did. She - she saw him take me away. I was trying to get back here, I tried to get back here, she was bleeding, a big pool of it, spreading, and I can still see her face when I close my eyes. All that terrible, desperate pain-"

Kate sobbed and he couldn't stop himself, reaching out to her and taking one of those lifeless hands, and Kate hunched over, leaning so far forward his hand was crushed between her torso and her thigh. He didn't move, didn't try to take her, because he wasn't entirely an idiot - that would be bad - all he could do was wait.

"Neither of them knew - they don't know I'm alive."

"They know," he croaked out, flushing hot with shame, with purpose. He'd never spoken about - anything like this - had been brainwashed to believe only in himself and what he could do. "They know you're alive, and they are so proud of you, so-"

"You don't know that."

"I know. I know. I can - can't you feel that? How they stay with you."

"They stay with me," she said, her voice so small. 

"I'm not talking crap about your memories in your heart," he growled. "I mean - they have to know. How can they not know?"

She shifted so far forward that her forehead touched her knees and his hand was right there, cradled between her body. He shuffled closer and laid his free hand on her shoulder, then tentatively stroked back through her hair, hooking it over her ear. But it wouldn't stay and her cheeks were tear-streaked and strands stuck to her face.

Messy and beautiful. Why was grief so beautiful? Why did her sorrow make her whole face severe and dangerous and heartbreaking so that he wanted to touch her cheekbones with his fingers and shape himself around her?

"Are they buried?" she said, toneless and struggling upright once more. He had his hand free, but he just held onto her, not taking it back.

"I can find their graves," he promised.

"I need to go there," she rasped, shook her head hard. "Not today. But - when it's - real."

This wasn't real? God, he - never had he felt like she felt. His own mother was a blank, not a reality, and she was pouring out emotion until he was thick with it.

"Okay," he told her. "I'll take you. No, I'll - find out where and you decide when and how and - you decide."

She glanced back to the car, the waiting car with those boys, and he could see her thoughts right there on the blank page of her face, written legibly for him to read. How she wanted something good before facing all she'd lost, how she thought those boys were part of it.

He wanted to be part of it. He wanted her to bring him to her parents' graves, lead him by the hand, and tell stories about them so that he had a picture of them in his head of how it meant to be a family.

Just a story, just one story. So he could know, taste it for a moment. 

It was all he expected he would get.

He was going to drink it down, as much as would go, gulp it until the last. Until she couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore; until she realized he was John Black’s son.

She didn't speak when she stood up again, she didn't say a word. She just walked back to the car with her hands dangling limp and empty at her sides.

Castle leaned over and took a chip from the brick wall that had knocked loose from a bar fight or the dumpster truck's prongs. It was the same size as Colin's bullet. He secreted it in his hand and stood himself, moving to follow her.

\-----

She was exhausted by the time the Land Rover made it into Spanish Harlem, and the brilliant sun baked the apartment buildings brown and red before her. Boys were outside, lots of nine year old boys with stiff indigo jeans and t-shirts worn thin by summer sweat, boys that could have been playing stickball in the 1950s. Their ears stuck out from their close-cropped heads, glowing pink, their skins like hard-shelled nuts, well-polished.

Kate was pale as a ghost and just as insubstantial; she stood out here.

But sunlight, and the blue sky, and the apartment buildings with their laundry hanging in the windows and from flower boxes, and the murals vivid and faded and re-painted, and the clatter of people on the sidewalk with their strollers and groceries and silk shells with the jackets over their shoulders-

But life. All of life crammed into one intense strip of an island on the East Coast and she was here.

“Kate?”

She turned, found the strong lines of his face, the soft pale blue of his eyes, cornflower, baby blue. 

“We’re here,” he said, a smile that creased his eyes.

She leaned forward and glanced up through the window to the six-story apartment building, aged, worn, not all that well cared for. It made her feel better, and she released her seat belt with a soft ruffle of Wyatt’s hair.

Home, she almost said. But didn’t. 

When she slid down off the runner to the sidewalk, she saw that Colin had parked in a tow-away, but he’d flashed something onto the dashboard and was exiting from the driver’s side. Kate glanced back to the neighborhood, the flags and cultural pride, the mixture of ethnicities and the green trees that waved in the breeze.

A convenience store and gas station two blocks down. A string of Mexican flags fluttering between it and the building across, maybe a bank. A Catholic church the other direction.

It felt like someone’s home. 

Kate turned back to the open door and found a little face smiling at her. Wyatt flushed and ducked his head, pressed it against the side of the carseat. He lifted a hand and opened his fist, closed it again, and it took a few seconds before Kate realized Wyatt wanted her.

She stepped in close and caught his hand, pressed his palm against her cheek. “Hey, Wyatt. I’d pick you up if I could-”

“No picking them up,” Castle said, coming up at her back. He had James in one arm, but he reached in and began unbuckling Wyatt.

“I said I wouldn’t,” she muttered, stroking her thumb into Wyatt’s palm. She had to let him go so that Castle could unstrap him, and then he tugged the boy forward into his waiting arm.

He did it so smoothly, easily. Like he knew exactly how to handle two boys at one time. While she stood here and watched.

He was their dad. Just as her dad - her dad had gone to his death trying to find her, Castle was the boys’ father. 

So maybe they all three deserved a chance to figure that out, and she should keep quiet about standing on the sidelines.

“All right, any other bags?” Colin called.

Castle shook his head. “You’ve got everything. Kate, you ready?”

What could she be doing that she’d need to get ready? “Yes.”

Castle moved towards the front door, shifting the boys in his arms. “James, quit wiggling around. I don’t want to drop you. Your mommy would kill me.”

Kate jerked to a stop on the sidewalk, staring after the two men as they carried off the boys. The - her boys. Her sons.

She was their mom.

Why did that feel so wrong? She had given birth to them, she had nursed them since that first hour, their mewling and squirming bodies against her chest.

But she had barely held them, only knew them apart because Wyatt was smaller, had been from the beginning. She didn’t know what they did all day without her, didn’t know how long they slept through the night or when it had happened; she had no clue what their little quirks of personality might be.

She wasn’t their mother. Calling her mom was the last thing-

“Yo, Kate,” Colin called. “Keep up. I ain’t carrying you.”

Castle pivoted before the security door, flashing her a smirking look. “But I will. Go on, Kate Beckett, fall behind. I dare you.”

She’d been stuck to the sidewalk until that moment, until that sly grin on his face and the tease the made his eyes the same too-bright as the sky, and then over his shoulder, Wyatt’s hand reaching out for her again, hand opening and closing and-

was he waving at her?

“You’re really pushing it, Beckett.”

She bit her bottom lip but her smile escaped and she came forward, a little mortified by how quick her steps were to catch up to him, but what did she care? She had eight weeks.

They had eight weeks.

\-----

“Bed,” he told her. “Though it’s piss-poor. And then the bathroom-”

“Bed looks really good to me,” she answered. He glanced back at her and was arrested by the sight. 

Kate had James by the hand, his fingers wrapped around her thumb, walking him through the short T-junction that separated bedroom from guest room. Her hair was falling down over one shoulder, so long, nearly to her waist, and wavy where it had air-dried last night. Her face was turned up to Castle even as she bent over James, and she was smiling in a kind of soft way, like she was trying to spare his feelings.

He looked at his bedroom again and saw it with new eyes, the box springs and mattress and the thin comforter, the black-out curtains on the windows now pulled open and letting in sunlight. Not so bad as he’d thought, and private, and the light, and a real bed even if it was on the floor.

“Really good right now?” he asked. He wasn’t sure what Wyatt was doing. The boy had disappeared around the corner into the bathroom and things were really silent.

“Mm, soonish?”

He smiled. “Yeah. Okay, let me show you where the towels are.” He moved forward, also hunting for the littlest boy, and when he stepped into the bathroom, he found Wyatt standing before the raised lid of the toilet.

He wasn’t drinking it, so let him stare longingly into its depths. Castle turned to Kate and gestured to the little five-shelf organizer standing beside the bath tub. “It’s a claw foot, so it’s slippery. But the water gets scalding and the towels are clean. Uh, I think.”

Castle leaned in and cautiously sniffed one and it made Kate laugh. Musty, but clean at one point. He also really liked hearing her laugh like that, surprised into it, and he’d look a fool all over again just to hear it.

“You do your own laundry there, Rick?”

He was surprised by the tease, more by the use of his first name. “No,” he admitted. “CIA service. But - it’s clean.”

“They - um - come in here?”

He shook his head, ready to reassure her, but then they both heard a plop and the sound of a giggle. Kate’s mouth dropped open and Castle turned swiftly to find Wyatt standing before the toilet, working at the handle to flush it.

“What did he throw in?” Kate said, trying to move. But she had James by the hand and Castle would always be faster, and he was already there, fishing out a-

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned.

“What is that?” Kate asked.

He closed his fingers around the foil packages, fished them out one by one as Wyatt grinned, looking proud of himself. “Where the hell did you get these?” he muttered.

“What are they?” She had nudged James closer, and now she took Wyatt’s hand in hers as well, and both boys were standing with her, all three of them looking innocent and entirely too pure for condoms in the toilet.

“Um, just-”

“Oh,” she flushed, and then she laughed, a bright laugh, and her lips quirked at him. “I see. Quite a lot of those lying around, Castle?”

“No,” he mumbled.

“I’m not sure which is better - the fact that you’re prepared, or the fact that there are so many left unopened.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Because you’re either not getting any action or you’re-”

“Can we just leave it at well-prepared?” he growled. 

“Oh, no. This is too fun. I’ll be bringing it up again. How your son found your stash and threw them in the toilet.”

He croaked on his own laugh, eyes flashing to hers to see if she’d meant it like that, or if she hadn’t any idea. And maybe she hadn’t, but she did now, and she flushed again and her cheeks were pink and pretty and her hair wavy around her face and he wanted to see her breasts again, and hold them, comb her hair over them so that her nipples peeped out between the lovely dark strands-

“Rick?”

“Yeah, well. Boys are never too young to learn about protection. Come on, Wyatt, let’s get you away from things you might break.” He reached in and took the boy into his arms, carried him out of the bathroom, hoping Kate would follow. And she did, right at his back, shuffling forward with James’s hand around hers.

In the living room, there was simply a meager lump of a bag and a chair, not much else. Not even a television. He’d have to get one of those and park the boys in front of it, keep them distracted from throwing things in the toilet.

“Where’d Colin go?” she said.

“Home, probably. Too close in here for him.”

“Close - close in his head?”

Castle studied her a moment, saw her struggling with it. To believe it. “Yeah.”

She worked her shoulders in and sighed. “Okay.”

“He has a couple of safe places, including a few rat holes in the city. Took a safe house from our father when he was sixteen, just - stayed there and kicked out everyone else. He’s always been unstable.”

“He was stable today.”

“Comes and goes,” he shrugged. Wyatt was patting his back with an awfully coordinated hand. “He does better when he’s had time to be alone. After what we did-”

“All those people. Does he - are they close in his head too? Did he feel that?”

Castle set Wyatt down on his feet and straightened up. “No. Just - us.”

“Us?”

“Well, me. My brothers. Black. And now - apparently - you and the boys.”

“Me?” She frowned. “But I’m not part of this.”

“But you are, Kate.” He shrugged, helpless to it. He wished she weren’t, he really did. “You’re part of this, part of this wreckage of a-” Castle shook his head, rejecting it. “He’s dead. He’s dead and it doesn’t matter what we were. What matters is what we make now.”

She nodded, but her eyes shifted down to Wyatt, then to James. “I want to make something good for them.”

Castle leaned forward and gripped her upper arm, wishing he had more to show her, more of an apartment, more of a life to share. Something other than hollow words. “We will. Give me a chance to prove it to you, Kate.”

She looked up at him; exhaustion marred her eyes. “Prove? You have nothing to prove. There is nothing you have to prove.”

Because he wasn’t really a dad. He was some biology in a petrie dish, forced on her. He wasn’t anything but a spy, no matter his newfound freedom, and just because he’d found her one night standing in his father’s blood didn’t mean he had any say in this.

She’d done it all on her own.

Still his heart thrashed in his chest and he ducked in to comb his fingers back through Wyatt’s soft hair. “But I want to prove it,” he said finally. “I have so much to prove.”

\-----


	8. Chapter 8

The bed was huge. The boys didn't want her out of sight, and so they were squirming around on the mattress with her, playing hide and seek with their faces, giggling when she 'found' them again. Castle kept coming in and out, like he had errands, little tasks to keep him busy and moving.

And then she realized he just wanted to be in here with them.

"Stay," she said, patting the bed. She was propped on her side, head in her hand with her elbow digging a hard point into the mattress. She wasn't sleepy, just worn thin, and staying in one place felt too good to move. 

Castle, with the duffle bag in his hands for the third time like he'd changed his mind about where it should go, finally stopped beside the bed. "What are you guys doing?"

"I guess just playing," she answered, shrugging at him with one shoulder. She didn't know how to entertain two fourteen month old boys, but they didn't look bored. "They think it's funny to hide."

Castle sank down to the mattress, his knees pulled up nearly to his chin with his feet on the floor. She didn't mind being so low to the ground; the view was nice, and she felt safer somehow, like she was less exposed. She could roll right off and be on her feet in seconds. And the boys, when they did move, wouldn't have far to fall.

"I ordered in some pizza," he said. "For lunch. Are you hungry? Or I could get any-"

"Pizza," she blurted out, sitting upright. Oh, pizza. How had she forgotten pizza? "That's what I want. God, I'm starving. You think they can eat pizza? I mean, I know they have to nurse but I bet they could chew on the crust?"

"Yeah, they ate that cereal," he said, smiling a little.

"What kind of pizza?"

"Um, veggie and a meat lovers."

She grinned and leaned back against the wall, catching Wyatt as he attempted to crawl over her knees. "I do love some meat."

His face flushed. "You said that on purpose."

"I did," she gave him, lifting an eyebrow. He was so eager in some ways, and as loyal as a puppy, following her around from room to room until she settled and then coming back to her every few minutes. "And I meant it."

He gave her a look back, and there was, unsaid, the whole three years trapped thing that probably paid a lie to what she'd said about meat. What did she know at all? 

"Hm, well. Italian sausage can be spicy."

She choked on a laugh, clutching Wyatt as the boy scrambled into her lap. "I - you're Italian?"

His face absolutely flamed. "No! I - wasn't - didn't mean me, Beckett. Fuck."

"Well, I was insinuating something along those lines."

He groaned and tilted his head back, tapping it solidly against the wall. Twice, and then a third time. "You're gonna kill me."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"I think you're having plenty of fun," he muttered. His eyes flashed to hers and then his lips curved at the corner, crooked, sexy. He was sexy. Damn. He was wide and strong and his eyes were pretty like a girl's with those lashes but his jaw was firm, settled into lines that said no-nonsense. But he could play; she'd seen him play.

"I am having fun," she told him softly. She lifted her hand and touched the sleeve of his t-shirt. "Are you?"

That same crooked, sly smile. "Mm."

"I'll take that as a yes," she murmured. Their shoulders touched as they leaned against the wall at the head of the bed, and the silence that fell between them was like a blanket, comforting, warm. She studied the look on his face, the emotion in his eyes as he watched James explore the bed covers with two hands and his bottom sticking up. Castle seemed entranced, but she had an idea that it wasn't with the boys.

She leaned in very softly and blew in his ear.

Castle yelped and shot her a startled, hot look. Hot. And then his mouth crashed into hers and took a fierce, dominating kiss.

\-----

She moaned and flung her arms around him and that’s all it took to press her down into the mattress. Body to body. But she was so sleight, corded heat over wire, that he pushed back on his elbows, caught her shoulders to keep her from rising up after him.

His heart was already pounding. “Wait.”

She shifted a knee up and he grunted, seriously compromised, and it only made her laugh.

“Kate,” he insisted, closing his eyes and turning his head. Collect himself.

“Kissing isn’t sex,” she muttered. “I know that much.”

His eyes flashed hard back to her face, studying, memorizing her look until she flushed and frowned. He didn’t want her to think he was suspicious, but hell, he was suspicious. “When you say you know that much, what exactly is the much you think you know?”

“Shut up,” she growled, shoving on his shoulders. Of course he didn’t move - she couldn’t possibly move him - but he shifted to one knee and touched the side of her face with his hand. 

“Just - tell me what you’re looking for here,” he said finally. He stroked her cheekbone and she turned her head, but she didn’t move out from (half) under him. And she could have if she wanted to.

She could have gotten away from him. She wasn’t. She was staring at the window, and he had the terrible sensation of her withdrawal. She wasn’t moving not because she wanted to be pressed under him, but because not-moving was how she dealt with discomfort, problems, trauma.

Castle moved off of her and sat up again, reached down and drew his arm under her shoulders to pull her upright as well. She glanced at him, the life slowly coming back to her eyes.

“Pizza here?” she murmured. Like they hadn’t almost-made out, like she hadn’t sailed away inside her head.

“No, love. But I think a conversation is a good idea.”

She squirmed, only slightly, but she wasn’t comfortable. He had to resist the urge to automatically back away, give her space, because she was the one who kept pushing, teasing, insinuating and outright telling him she wanted to have sex with him.

Which they couldn’t do.

But. Other things. “Kissing isn’t sex,” he said, nudging her shoulder with his. “And touching isn’t sex. But it is fun. And really - um - overwhelming with you.”

“Yeah?” she whispered, her head snapping to his. She was chewing on the inside of her cheek, he thought. She looked small beside him. “Yeah. I - forget myself.”

“I don’t forget you,” he growled.

She laughed, a short and surprised thing, but she tucked into his side, shoulder into his as they sat back against the wall. He laid his hand over her thigh and lightly stroked.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said finally. “I won’t hurt you, Kate. That won’t happen - so push all you like, squirm in my lap, chew on your lip, tease-”

“I don’t want to be a cocktease,” she said, frowning. “I intend on following-”

“No,” he said sharply, squeezing her knee. “We’re not following through. That’s what I’m saying. It’s not-”

“But I can - do other things,” she muttered. “We. We can do things, right?”

He gave her a sidelong look, loosened his hold on her knee. But only to stroke down her inside thigh. “We can do things.” He rubbed his thumb over her patella and shifted so that his arm laid heavy at the place where her legs pressed together. “How about we say what specific things you’re thinking of, Kate, because I’m guessing there are other things I can teach you.”

She stiffened.

He slowly rubbed her knee. “You’re young, sweetheart. And it’s nothing against you - it’s just a matter of record.”

“I don’t feel young,” she spat out.

He smiled and nudged his nose against the side of her face. He could vaguely sense the boys as they chewed on those rag dolls Kate had made for them, and when he glanced down, James was lying on his stomach on the foot of the bed with Wyatt on the floor, entertaining themselves.

Kate sighed. “I’m sure you’ve had better, but I can-”

“Hey, now,” he said quickly, digging his elbow into her thigh. She yelped and jerked, and he leaned into her and kissed her, his mouth rough on hers to make a point. To take what he’d wanted since this morning when he’d had to watch her fall apart in the alley.

When he touched her face and put himself away, she reached up and caught him, breathing hard, fingers hard against his ear. “Don’t go.”

“Not. Not going. I’m hoping to stay.”

She clutched harder. “Don’t call me young.”

He rubbed his cheek into her palm, her inside wrist, kissed softly. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want to have you, however that can be arranged within limitations?”

He chuckled softly, rubbed his thumb at her bottom lip until she blinked and let out a breath that dusted his knuckles. 

Castle softly kissed the spot under her eyelid where the beauty mark made her features beautifully irregular. “Mm, all right. Anything goes?”

She sucked in a breath.

“I’m asking, Kate,” he murmured, so close to her he could kiss her again - but too close to see what was in her eyes. “I’m asking because there are quite a lot of things that fall under ‘having’ - and I’m not sure you quite know what you’re ask-”

“Anything goes,” she husked. “Any-anything I can get with you.”

“Then I want to touch you,” he said at her mouth. “I want you to touch me. And no more of this fumbling around.”

“Oh, yes,” she groaned, shifting into his body.

“After pizza,” he said, unable to help his laugh when she slapped his chest. He caught her hand and kissed it too. “After the boys sleep, when it’s just the two of us in this bed, love. Then we’ll see how young you are.”

\-----

She was troubled by what had happened.

She hadn’t meant to cut herself adrift in the middle of that. He’d pressed her down and it had felt - really very good, especially at the ache between her legs, in her womb - but the talking and the intimacy had also done something to her.

She hadn’t quite been in control of that. Self-defense, she thought, a coping mechanism, the choice to drift off, to disengage. That had been her own weapon inside the facility, and she’d used it. She’d called it the silent treatment. 

Maybe she’d used it a lot. Maybe too much.

She didn’t know exactly what had triggered it this time, but she was afraid it had pushed Castle away from making out and more towards caution and concern. And a conversation about how inexperienced she was and how disappointing she inevitably would be for him and she’d really rather-

“Oh, hey, pizza,” he said. He jumped right up from the bed and stepped over one of the boys who was crawling towards the mattress. She had - forgotten them. The boys. She had gotten sucked into Castle, his body near her, his fingers on her knee, and she had forgotten to be sure the boys weren’t making trouble.

Or sticking their fingers into the outlets.

But they were okay.

“I didn’t hear the door,” she said, sliding her legs off the mattress to stand.

He was already heading out of the bedroom and into his narrow living room, but he stopped. “Ah, no. It’s not precisely delivery.”

She frowned. “What is it?”

“Colin,” he said, shrugging at her. “I can’t have a pizza guy knowing my address, Kate.”

“Oh.” She had a lot to learn about him, about his lifestyle and how he had to do things. “I see. But Col is here now?”

“He’s coming up. Perimeter alarm buzzed me.”

“It did?” She found herself following him out of the room as he moved for the door. From his back pocket, he pulled a - phone? fuck, that was a phone? “Castle. Is that a cell phone?”

His mouth dropped open.

She blushed and turned away. “Right,” she muttered, heading back towards the bedroom. She found James crawling after her - hands and knees even though she knew he could walk. “Hey, boys, pizza is on it’s way up. Come out into the kitchen.”

Wyatt turned from where he’d been trying to climb the mattress and he beamed at her, holding out a hand in that gesture of gimme gimme that made her heart lean out after him. 

“Okay, come on then,” she said quietly. When she came to him at the bed, he tilted his head back to look up at her, still grinning, and she was struck by how much he looked like Castle.

His hand in hers, she guided him back towards the door, lifting her foot and nudging her toe into James’s bottom. He looked at her over his shoulder.

“Stand up and walk,” she told him. She had no idea how much the boys understood, not when they spoke nothing at all, but something was getting through.

She heard the door click and then the locks sliding open, one after another. She glanced around the corner, waiting on a slow James and a bouncing Wyatt, and she saw when Colin came inside with the pizza boxes.

He looked bad. God, had she missed it before? He looked really wrecked. And then when she and the boys cleared the junction and came into the living room, Castle growled something at his brother and stepped into Colin’s way.

Blocking them off. 

She paused at the end of the living room, only one bare lazy-boy chair between the adult men and herself. And the boys. James was crawling again, and she wondered if it was the carpet disturbing him.

She put her foot on his back and he grunted at her, turning to shoot her a look. Disgruntled. It was - adorable. 

Suddenly Castle said something short and Kate glanced up - Colin was shrugging him off.

She didn’t know what it was about, but Colin looked sweat-soaked and wild, something bad in his eyes.

“Castle,” she said.

He turned only slightly, his eyes not leaving his brother.

“If he can, let him.” She was butting into their business, and she knew that, and she knew that she had no idea what the history was, but she thought they all needed each other right now.

“He’s right,” Colin said then. “I never know when I can. So-”

“You can,” she told him, frowning. “Now get over here. Pick a boy - either one - and see if it doesn’t help. I want pizza.”

Castle stared at her, Colin stared at her, but James got to his feet - slowly, he even dusted off his hands like the carpet sensation was disorienting - and then he toddled purposefully straight towards Colin.

With Wyatt’s fingers still curled around her thumb, she waited until Colin stepped past Castle and picked James up.

Settled. They were settled. Peace for a little while anyway.

\-----

Castle was arrested by her. The way she devoured her pizza, her lashes touching and then her eyes opening wide as the taste hit her. It would be erotic but for how Castle had to keep corralling the boys - and paying attention to his brother.

It wasn’t legal substances this time.

And they worked, because Colin was mired in only his own trouble. He didn’t eat - he probably couldn’t - but he did wander from the kitchen counter to the living room and back again. Castle had a slice on the bare granite, abandoned when he’d been forced to follow the boys around to keep them from choking on their crusts.

“High chairs,” he said, making a mental list.

“Oh. And a bed for them,” she called back. He glanced over his shoulder and Colin was fidgeting at the counter beside her. She didn’t look concerned, but she didn’t know to be.

“Col.”

His brother shifted away and scraped a jerking hand through his hair, came too quickly through the living room to the lone chair and sat down hard in it. “I’m trying,” he gritted out, eyes flashing to Castle.

“I know you are,” he said under his breath, herding Wyatt away from the bare radiator. It would be cold water running through it now, but probably a good idea to tell the kid no. “Damn, Wyatt, I thought you were the quiet one. Come on, sit down and gnaw on your crust like your brother.”

“Is he not eating?” Kate had shifted away from the counter, but he could see how something about the day had gotten to her. She leaned her elbows on the granite again and rubbed a hand over her eyes.

“Well, eating is relative,” Castle answered, abandoning Wyatt when he seemed to head for James. Castle himself moved to Kate and laid a soft hand on her back. Still, he made her flinch and she lifted from her elbows, trying to straighten.

“I should nurse,” she said, but there was a question in her voice.

“Leave it for now,” he murmured. “Later, love.”

“So,” Colin said suddenly into the intimacy. “Tell me how you did it. Scalpel into his face? Neck? It was a bloodbath in there.”

Castle froze. A tremor went through Kate.

“Is it too soon?” Colin said, all sneering innocence.

James croaked something angry, something without real words but definitely sounds, the rhythm of arguing.

Kate swallowed. Castle stood up straight and moved for James, picking up the boy and hushing him softly. He was thinking, distractedly, about that scalpel and where it was now and why Kate had said nothing about it.

Had she hidden it somewhere?

“How did it work, Kate?” Colin kicked back in the armchair, his eyes jittering around the room, barely looking at her. Castle had to move fast to grab for Wyatt, and now he had both boys in his arms rather than Kate who probably ought to have his protection.

Where was that damn scalpel? Fuck. He was a covert agent and he’d forgotten the scalpel and now it was a thing. It shouldn’t be. He trusted her. But some things he couldn’t turn off.

“How’d you get Black to even fucking show up?” Colin snarled. “He never-”

“Colin.” Castle snapped back to the conversation - interrogation - but he had both boys and he couldn’t grab for his brother. “Shut the fuck up.”

“No,” Colin growled, jerking upright, the chair folding up. “I want to fucking know. He showed up for her? I could be fucking dying, and he’d send you to clean up my mess, leave me - but one word from her and he’s-”

“I jabbed a wire up there - inside me - and scraped my insides out onto the floor,” Kate harshed.

Colin shut up.

“Four weeks,” she said. Her knuckles were white against the counter, holding herself up. “They were four weeks, so that means small - right? Really small. A seed. I had to make sure I got them, make sure they wouldn’t possibly - couldn’t - survive.”

“Kate,” he whispered, arms full of boys, riveted to his spot.

“It took fifteen minutes. I had to be sure. When there was too much blood to - keep going - the wire kept slipping, my hands were...” She trailed off, head bowed forward, staring at her pizza.

He didn’t have even plates for the damn pizza. Not even napkins. She’d been using the box lid and wiping smears of grease off on the cardboard. And now she pushed off against the counter and stood on her own. 

“I terminated his science project. He didn’t come running for me. He came for them. To do damage control. As he always did. I’d had the scalpel hidden in the hollow tube of the bed railing, all metal, so it couldn’t be picked up on a sweep. I always throw up after anesthesia and so I’d vomit over the side and work on getting it loose. When I passed out, it was there, ready, ready.”

“Kate,” he whispered. But he couldn’t stop her.

“When I woke up, I was in restraints. And your father was there. A touch, a nasty comment. A way to make it seem like he’d orchestrated the whole thing, but I had the scalpel. I picked at the blade until I could get a grip and then I cut through the restraints while he chided me about being more careful next time, and then when he was the most fucking full of himself, I jabbed the blade into his carotid artery and I shredded it.”

God, Kate.

“He clutched his throat; he was staring at me in utter horror. He was terrified of me. And then he was lurching forward and I stabbed the scalpel in his eye until it struck bone and he was dead.”

No one breathed.

“Thank you,” Colin said, completely sober now. He stood up like an old man, in elaborate stages, and then he pushed himself for the door. 

Castle wanted to fucking hit his brother; he always did this - destroyed the whole fucking world and left so never had to deal with it.

Colin opened the door and closed it after himself.

Castle turned back to say something to Kate, but she was a ghost, already fading, slipping back to the bedroom and down to the bed and crawling in.

He needed a damn cage for the boys - a pen, something. As it was, he went into his bedroom after her and shut the door, put both boys on the mattress, and then Castle laid down himself at her back.

He didn’t touch her; he just laid there, waiting. Giving her someone to have, like she’d asked.

James and Wyatt, lucky bastards, got to crawl right into her arms and huddle at her chest, doing the exact thing he wished he could do.

\-----

He was petting her hair.

James.

James was petting her hair where it fell along her neck. 

Two boys huddled against her like puppies, though she vaguely realized Wyatt was butting his head into her hip and thigh, repeatedly. She didn't know why. James rubbed his face in her shirt and sighed, his little fingers tangled in her hair.

She stirred and she then felt the man shifting at her back, all heat. All heat and close, close presence. She turned slowly on her back and he was there, head lying on a folded arm, watching her.

She stared up at him, dragged a hand across her body and touched his chin. Where the dimple was, tucked beside the cleft, a scar that pressed deep. She touched that rugged feature and his lips canted into a soft kiss at her fingers.

She rolled into him, putting James at her back, drawing her leg up to free Wyatt - and push herself closer into Castle. He lifted a little and caught James, pulled the boy over her body to squirm between them, but Castle's arm was pressed in tight to the mattress, giving them a little haven of face to face.

He curled his fingers under her chin and stroked up along her throat and under her jaw. Not speaking. Not asking.

"Did I do the right thing?" she finally said. 

"Yes."

Unequivocal. No hesitation. "But they - were boys too. Your-"

"No."

She sighed. She hadn't thought - purposefully had kept herself from thinking about a seed-like collection of cells as being anything at all. Parasites. Worms. But they had been two boys like James and Wyatt, boys she would have loved without being able to help it. And they'd be four, like Castle and his brothers, four-

"You did the only right thing," Castle said sharply. "And it's done. Second-guessing only leads to failure up the road. Be confident in now, or you'll lose your tomorrow."

She took a breath and fought to keep her eyes on him. The boys were too good at keeping quiet, low profile; they were too adept at adapting to the moods of those around them. They weren't normal boys.

"He never said that," Castle whispered softly. "I say that. That's what I've learned for myself, Kate. I'm not good or wise, but I know that much."

"Fake it till you make it," she said, giving him a crooked smile. It felt faked too, but lying here with him felt like the most real thing she'd done all of her life. The most - action she'd gotten. And not about sex, but about her own damn life, doing something about her own life. Killing four men - she had killed four men and two cell cultures - those things were walled off behind glass, but lying in this bed with Castle was an awareness with sharp teeth.

"Have we made it?" he asked her softly. "Or is that all of life? Trying to make it."

"I don't know. What do I know at all?"

"I think you know enough for a lifetime," he sighed. "You did make it. You made it out. Kate. You made it out and you brought these two with you, you brought me with you. You brought my brothers out with you. And every other person this touches - all the women he won't be able to buy like property, all the boys he won't mold in his own image, the mothers and fathers who get to kiss their kids at night, safe, safe in their beds, because no elixir hangs over their heads."

She was breathing; she found she was breathing even without her knowledge of it - and hanging onto Castle for life itself. Every word.

"Whatever you do now, you don't have to fake it, love. What you are is a warrior - and a mother, and a girl, and a survivor, a fighter, a-"

"Killer," she got out. His fingers were already brushing across her lips to negate it.

"Not like me," he said. "When you're a killer, you aren't in anguish for it, love. You'll know you are when you no longer feel it."

She flared her hand out along his jaw. "You couldn't be a killer."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I am."

"No." She didn't believe it; he wouldn't touch her like this, wouldn't care. He wouldn't tell her no. "You feel. Feel this." She could see it in his eyes, how just her fingers along his skin made him want her. She might have been nineteen the last time she'd done anything, but she knew that much - that didn't change with age.

And maybe she'd spent her twenty-first birthday hooked up to an IV, not even knowing she was pregnant but knowing something was wrong - and not in a bar like the rest of them - but she knew what he felt for her, what he wanted.

"I feel this - so much," he rasped. His eyes looked heavy with lust, with need, and not just that average and everyday hook-up. "I never - no one has ever gotten to me so fast, so hard."

"No one?"

"Never," he swore, his heart already thudding in his neck where her fingers were. "I don't know what you're doing to me, but I don't want it to stop."

"I won't stop."

His fingers slipped under her t-shirt, coasted up her ribs, plucked at the elastic of her sports bra. 

"You don't stop either," she murmured.

He pushed under her bra and cupped her breast, just that fast, kneading hard, that dark intent in his eyes. She felt it immediately, felt the surge of wanting and the swollen urgency, the raw scrape of the material against her skin. And then she was leaking out over his hand, wet and warm, and her eyes startled to his. "Sor-"

But Castle lowered his head and rooted under her shirt, closed his mouth over her nipple.

\-----

Kate gasped, arching as his mouth tugged something deep out of her. She clutched at his ears and gripped tightly, shuddering as the sensation traveled straight to her womb, a clench and release that made it impossible to breathe.

His tongue rolled her nipple across his teeth and she groaned, clenching her jaw to keep from crying out. Instinctively suppressing any noise. He hummed at her breast and she felt the milk pulling out of her, the intense release.

His mouth was hot, and she wound her arm around his neck to hold him there, felt her body arc high. He kept her down against the mattress, braced on an elbow, his chest heavy across her pelvis. 

She bucked and he sucked hard and came off her breast, lifting his head in her grip. She gulped ragged breaths and lowered her chin to look at him, startled, wild intensity.

"Don't thrust," he growled.

"Wha-what."

"Don't - buck." He stroked a hand down her sternum to the waistband of her pants, pushed his fingers into her stomach just enough. She grimaced and felt her knee come up in defense, but he elbowed her back down. "If you work it, Kate, you'll contract inside. And you can’t."

"Oh," she husked, incredibly aroused by the way he talked about it. 

"It's like a fist," he said, dropping his lips to lightly dust over her breast. "It squeezes like a fist inside. When you start to undulate-"

"Oh, God." Why was undulate such a fucking hot word?

"-it tugs that fist tighter," he finished. His fingers traced back up her belly to the underside of her breast, feathering his touch so that she whined. "Don't grind into me, love. Just let it wash over you. Easy."

"I don't think that's possible," she moaned.

"Shh," he hushed, shifting up so that his chest rubbed her bare breast. She shuddered. His fingers danced along her neck. "It is possible. You're very responsive to me, love, and that's so hot. But for now, don't fight it, don't push back against it, just let it fall over you."

"But I - I won't come?" she croaked.

"Well. You could. But you won't. I won't let it get that far."

She swallowed and tried to lick her dry lips. He growled and pressed his face into her breast, his nose nudging her sports bra up. Her breasts spilled out, heavy with milk, and Castle immediately put his mouth on the neglected one.

Kate gasped, unable to help bucking her hips against him. He slammed the heel of his hand down against her thigh and trapped her, but it was so good, it was so good, being held down by him.

His lips pulled at her nipple, engorging it with milk until it was painful. She couldn't help glancing down and she saw her bare breast - the one he'd started on first - pointing thickly towards the ceiling, a bud of milk on the distended nipple. She ached, she ached so damn badly, that orphaned nipple and the heaviness that pressed back against her ribcage.

Castle's mouth sucked on her other breast, sucked deeply so that she felt it hot and sharp through her body. His palm came up and covered the other breast, massaging the flesh until the milk creamed his fingers and dribbled across her stomach from the long line of his arm.

"Castle," she whispered, shaking with it. How it twisted her insides with every suckle of his mouth, the vacuum pressure his mouth made, his mouth on her breast, oh God, and the milk that filled, the milk he drew out of her.

She dragged her hands down the back of his shirt, gripping flesh where she could find enough skin. Her body couldn't resist the upward press of her center against him, pressing hard up into him, the pressure so necessary she could cry.

His lips sucked wetly off her nipple and then his tongue dragged a trail between her breasts to let him lick along his fingers, sucking the leaking milk from his own hand. She was shuddering, her jaw so tightly clamped that she was aching in her cheeks.

Castle bit her breast and she jerked, a little cry that had him kissing between her breasts and coming up. She shook, trying to hang on to him, her arms all the way down the back of his shirt, palms hot on his spine, the material trapping her.

"Good?" he rasped.

"Ye-yes," she got out. She wanted his mouth - down there - down where it ached so badly she couldn't open her eyes.

"Easy, love," he whispered. His kiss was soft. "Let it ride. Don't try to hang on to it."

"I can't-"

"You can," he murmured. His mouth this time skimmed her breast, and his tongue followed. 

She mewled.

"That's right, love. I can't resist. Once more for me."

Kate wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him tighter to her breast.

\-----

The taste of her.

Castle licked at the slope of her breast as it leaked milk, using his fingers and thumb to knead her flesh. It caused the nipple to dew with clear and drop white to the side of his hand, and he raised it to his mouth and licked again.

Kate pushed up into his touch and her breasts were so obscenely full, so pulsing with letdown milk, that he pulled his head back to just to watch.

She mewled and her eyes flared open, her gaze lurching druggedly towards him. “Don’t stop.”

He dipped his head and licked around her nipple, circled with his tongue until she grunted in displeasure at the lack of pressure. He moved to the underside of her breast and had to push on her knee again as it came up, had to hold her legs down to keep her from spreading her thighs for him.

He wasn’t sure she knew she was doing it.

Kate shifted and suddenly one of the boys let out a squawk and then thumped as he rolled off the bed. Castle jerked his head up and glanced past her shoulder, saw Wyatt scrambling to his hands and knees. James was on the floor just past him, investigating the duffle bag. 

Kate’s fingers caught his jaw and he looked down at her.

“He’s fine,” Castle husked.

“What?” she croaked. Her eyes were still wild; she didn’t know what had happened. She had no idea of anything outside her own body and that was hot as fuck. So hot. 

“Nothing, love,” he whispered, coming back down to kiss her breast. “Are you still full?”

“I...”

He glanced up again and saw the way she wrestled with it, the need that moved over her face. “Baby, look at me.”

She mewled and pushed up, hips riding, and he pushed her back down. Her eyes finally came to his, her lashes thick as they parted. She was mesmerizing.

“You feel - so much,” he murmured. “I know you do. But tell me what you need. What more you want from me, and how it makes you feel. Just so I know that I won’t push you over the edge.”

“I want...”

He brushed his thumb under her breast, watching her face and how it rippled across her. She tried to arch again, her feet pushing at the sheets and tangling, but he drew his thigh across hers and pressed her back down.

“I want this,” she murmured, her fingers catching at his. She dragged his hand across her breast to bump the backs of their fingers across her nipple. “I want - sharp.”

He twisted her nipple and she choked on a cry, her torso arching up hard. He lowered his mouth to meet her and bit at the throbbing brown flesh, the feeling intense through him. She clutched the back of his head and squeezed his fingers so hard that he could feel his pulse throbbing there.

He tore from her grip and gave the other nipple the same treatment, scraping his teeth at her pebbled flesh. She trembled and he felt the shudder run down her body.

Castle pulled back, watching her a moment, and then he kneaded her breast with his thumb and fingers. “Talk to me.”

“I-” Kate tossed her head and opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling. “I feel hot. Everywhere.”

“You are definitely hot.”

Her head rolled so she could see him and her lips parted on a flickering smile.

“What else, baby?”

“Like I - came without - without coming at all.”

He grinned and pressed up her body, kissing that hazy smile. She moaned into his mouth and wrapped an arm around his upper back. The kiss was deep, rich, tongues sliding, mating. She gripped his back and the force of her hands on him, the warm press of her breasts under him - he had to resist the urge to rock his hips into her.

When their mouths parted for breath and his forehead rested against hers, she cupped her hand at his tricep and kept him close. 

“And you?” she rasped. “How do you feel?”

“Pretty damn cocky,” he said, smirking against her cheek.

She laughed and trailed her fingers down his back; he wished so badly there were no clothes between them. Wished the boys weren’t getting into trouble in the empty duffle, wished he could press his fingers into her sex and watch her face as she felt him for the first time.

“Cocky?” she murmured. “Can I help?”

“Later,” he promised. “Later, love.” He skimmed his fingers over her cheek and down her jaw, kissed her very softly. “We will definitely come back to this.”

\-----

Kate couldn’t possibly move.

She was too lazy. Was that it? She felt lazy in every part of her, every pore of her skin. Her breasts were no longer aching, the restlessness had gone, and that ache that had been persistent between her legs since she woke this morning - that had fallen away.

The buzz was more persistent, the thrill whenever he so much as looked at her - oh, yeah. And when she thought about the words he’d said to her - not the way he touched, but how he talked - she thrummed and vibrated all over again. She wanted more with him.

Anything at all.

She curled on her side and watched the boys put the duffle bag on their heads, giggling, both of them together. Castle had gone back to the kitchen to grab their pizza, and she was supposed to be - well, she had no idea what was supposed to happen now. 

She had thought that he would want her to touch him too, to wrap her hand around him and work him until he came. But no, okay, the boys were in here and that was really wrong, to do that in front of them even if they had no idea. They were pretty clever boys, and they paid attention, and maybe they had some idea.

“Wyatt,” she called out.

The duffle bag turned with their little heads, and Kate laughed. The black bag shimmied and then one little face peered out from under it. 

“Hey there,” she smiled. “What do you guys think you’re doing?”

James came crawling out and ran for the bed, clung to the mattress with a short grunt, and then he began to climb. It was something of a wonder, watching him work his way up, and just when he got to the top, Castle came through the doorway.

James scurried into her arms as if afraid now he was going to be taken away, clinging one last time to her. She struggled upright, cradling him against her chest.

“Hey, guys, I got pizza,” Castle said with a grin.

Kate hugged James with one arm, stroked his back gently. “You’re not going anywhere.” It was sweet the way Castle talked to the boys too. He didn’t ignore them; he seemed determined to take care of them however he could. “Castle brought us lunch so we can eat in here.”

“Well, you can at least,” Castle said, smiling. He dropped down to the mattress with her, opening the box as he nudged his shoulder into hers. “Here you go, babe.”

Babe. She’d heard that a couple times now. It was - a little bit thrilling. Why did that thrill her? Kate buried her smile in the top of James’s head, and he wriggled in her arms and turned - straight to her breast.

“Fuck,” she gasped, laughing as his mouth clung wetly to her shirt. “I think he can smell me.”

When she lifted her gaze, Castle was blushing. He looked adorable.

“He can?” 

“Um, I think so,” Kate winced. James had gotten her with his teeth. “I’m going to nurse him.”

Castle’s eyes flashed to hers. “Is there enough?”

He wasn’t hesitant at all. She stumbled over the words, the images already hot and blushing in her head, but he just - plowed right through it. Said exactly what they were both thinking, did I leave enough for him?

“There’s enough,” she promised. “Probably for both, but I’ll eat pizza in between. Wyatt seems fine right now.”

“You okay?” He lifted an eyebrow.

“Um, I might be a little mortified at how easily you talk about this while I’m blushing. Like I haven’t given birth while fifteen people watched, their fingers stuck up inside me to see if my cervix was dilated-”

“Okay,” he grunted. “Well. That’s - thanks for that. I’m mortified that fifteen people watched and you got no privacy at all. What the fuck. But this is just you and me, Kate. No need to be mortified. I hope you’re not.”

“Not like that,” she said softly. “I like what we did.” Kate touched his neck with her fingers, found the soft-fuzz of his earlobe, rubbed it gently. “I even like talking about it.”

He smiled back at her, nudging his cheek against her hand as he reached for pizza.

She shifted her shirt and popped her breast out from the sports bra. James was already rooting for it, latching on with a grunt like a piglet. She glanced down at him, how different it was - thank God for that - his little mouth around her like something being set to right.

While Castle set her on fire.

“You like it. But?”

“No but,” she said shaking her head. She winced when James bit her in his greed, and she flicked her fingers at his ear to make him stop. “No but at all. I guess I’m just not used to it.”

“No kidding.” His face washed with something bleak and he leaned back against the wall. “Fuck. I’ll be better about it - I can be gentler with you-”

She reached out and flicked his ear, tugging sharply until he growled at her. She batted his hand away when he tried to dislodge her, but he caught her fingers and laced theirs together.

“I’m not looking for gentle,” she told him. “I just meant that - no one has ever asked me how it felt or what I wanted. I’ve never had to put into words what it is I was feeling. Hell, I don’t often let myself feel what I’m feeling. That’s all.”

“That’s all.” He brought her hand into his lap and cradled it against him. She flexed her fingers and felt the rough edge of his jeans. She liked him in jeans. He nudged her shoulder. “That’s a lot.”

“I guess it is. But in the scheme of things...”

“Yeah,” he sighed. He ducked in and kissed her cheek. “Just don’t stop talking to me, okay? I want to know if I’m doing it right, but I also need to know - just how far you are. How much you can take before you come.”

She flushed hotly, but it was so - thrilling. Titillating, but more than just that. He talked like it was normal, everyday business, but it was his intimacy, not his jadedness. It was between two people, just between them, and it was wonderful like that.

“I’ll tell you,” she said, stopping to clear her throat. “I’ll definitely tell you.”

He nodded. “Good-”

“But you’ll tell me?”

Castle frowned, opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

“You tell me what feels good, where I can touch you, what you like. I want to know too. It’s only fair. I want to be good at you.”

She could see the struggle on his face and she had the feeling that just talking to him about it was doing the same to him as it had done to her. He wasn’t squirming, but he was close.

She wondered if she could talk him into an orgasm.

Hm. She’d have to think about that.

\-----

Their knees were interlaced. His knee between hers, hers on top of his while she leaned in against his chest, angled so that where he held Wyatt between them, the boy could latch onto her breast easily.

Castle kept nudging his nose against her, and she could faintly scent her milk on his breath. Her guts clenched though she tried to keep it from happening, little flutters of contraction that she wasn't supposed to be doing.

"It's - I know what you taste like," he murmured. "That's amazing."

While Wyatt pulled at the same place where his head had been, while this boy got whatever he could from her, it was amazing, he was right, but it also meant-

"If he's hungry later, I can get bananas and all that," Castle said. He'd said it with James too, reminding her again and again that the boys were fine, they wouldn't be starved, she was fine.

"I'm not - I know," she said, touching his face softly. Castle's lips, soft and chapped; she had felt that, the chapped places, the roughness against her skin. "I don't regret that at all. You'll - do that again?"

He sucked in a harsh breath and pressed his mouth against hers, a kiss of teeth to lips, a surge of feeling. "Yes," he growled. "Oh, yes." His eyes glittered as he devoured her with a look. "But only if you - you have to say. I won't take anymore from you than you want to give."

She half-shrugged. "It helps me, right? I have to produce milk to get the - the byproducts out of my system. Things the boys need, things you need too-"

"Don't need any longer," he husked. "But - yes. It's - it keeps you alive."

"Then won't that be a fun way to stay alive?"

He was so intense; everything about him crackling energy and fire and determination. "Only if it really is fun for you, Kate. Only if it doesn't hurt you or-"

"Would you stop putting up rules?" But she was smiling, widely, so that she could barely get the words out around the smile. "It doesn't hurt me." And the boys would be weaned faster if they had less to nurse, which meant she would - they could be separated - they could-

"What's that face for?" he whispered. "Why do you retreat like that?"

"I don't want to think about what happens next," she admitted, chewing on her lip. "I'm not ready for that."

"No, love, of course not. Why should you have to be? Day at a time." His kiss was soft this time, and then he trailed up to her eyelids and kissed one at a time so that she was listing heavily into him, wanting him, wanting more. "That's better," he hummed. "Much better."

"Sorry."

"No need for apologizing," he whispered. "I'm being selfish. I want you with me when I have you, all the time I have you."

She nodded. "Don't let me - um - shut down like that."

"Shut down. When you-"

"Retreat," she said. "I couldn't always - fighting back got me far, but then the boys - he always had the boys hanging over my head and so I just... quit. Um, I always called it the silent treatment."

Castle shifted closer, if he could at all get closer - they were already so close, and his lips skimmed her cheek. It was so nice to have all this touching, the soft warm feeling and the flutter in her stomach - and even the boys at her breast, their bodies against her - all of it was heaven, and exciting, and when both boys finally fell asleep tonight (or nap? would they nap this afternoon, oh please) she couldn't wait for what happened then.

"I won't let you quit," he said. 

His nose nuzzled hers, but some of that fuzzy feeling began to drain out, replaced by reality, by the fact of two boys she couldn't possibly mother. 

Castle nipped at her bottom lip with his teeth. "Don't you dare quit. This far, and done this much, I've got your back, Beckett. I'll see you through."

But through to what? What was the other side?

Where could she possibly go after three years a broodmare?

\-----

“Asleep,” he murmured, softly closing the door. He had bedded both boys down in the extra bedroom - what might have been a guest room if he’d had furniture in there.

“They’re okay?” she said. She hadn’t been able to let go of the boys, both of them rubbing tired faces into her chest, but Castle had pried them off of her.

“They’re fine,” he promised. He didn’t tell her that even though both were beyond tired, they had huddled together as if for comfort. “I think it’s just going to take time for them to believe you’ll be here when they wake.”

Kate buried her face in her hands.

“Hey,” he said quietly, coming to the foot of the bed and crawling onto the mattress. He settled beside her at the head. “Kate, love, don’t - it’s okay. It’s just time. They’re doing so good, all things considered.”

Her shoulders hunched and he couldn’t help cupping her shoulders and pulling her into his chest. There was less stiffness this time, less resistance - it just took time. For her as well. He was trying to remember that, trying to handle her with care.

“What happens when - when they don’t see me?” she whispered.

“I’ll bring them in to you,” he said easily. “That’s no problem. They need to get used to me too.”

She was silent beside him and he wondered if that had been the right thing to say. Was she still talking about giving the boys up? He had thought he’d made her understand that she had him, she had anything she needed to keep them.

Except. Well, maybe she didn’t want to keep them.

“Will you touch me again?”

Castle startled out of his circular thoughts, glanced over at her. She was narrow in the bed, her shoulders drawn in, her unhappiness extreme. “You’re not tired?”

“I’m always tired,” she said, flicking a laugh his way that didn’t sound very amused.

He laid his hand carefully on her drawn up knee, rubbed slowly at her leggings. He wanted undress her slowly and really see her, every curve of her skin, the places where her veins came up, the flutters as he touched her.

“I’m not too tired,” she promised again.

“I need to tell you,” he said, his thumb in slow circles on her knee. “Tonight we’ll have to - I’ve got some of the elixir from Alex. It’s an injection.”

“It will make me feel bad,” she sighed.

“I’m afraid it will,” he gave. “But already you’ve been without nearly - over twenty-four hours, love. And part of feeling tired right now is needing it.”

“How fast can I be weaned off this stuff?”

He looked her in the eyes, frowning as he went over his mental map. “To be safe, four or five weeks, steadily giving you less and less. Three months is - that’s how long it took the last time with...”

“With who?”

He winced. “Coonan and his group. But it - Coonan didn’t come down fast enough. Three months was way too long. His frontal lobe was riddled with holes where the elixir had misshaped his lipoproteins. They formed bonds with his brain cells-”

“And he went crazy. Killing my mother and taking me.”

He nodded, keeping his hand still. He didn’t want to mix these things up in her head, didn’t want the talk about the program and her mother’s murder to be paired with how she wanted him to touch her.

“Am I going to go crazy?”

“No,” he harshed, jerking upright to look at her. Stare her down. “No. You are not. The boys - they’re like going on dialysis. They take the bad out of you, Kate. The stuff that would build up in your blood, toxic. The medical records show that it’s working, keeping you in balance in a way I couldn’t have foreseen, but it’s documented-”

She shivered. “I don’t want to think about this. You said four weeks. Okay. Fine. I - I’ll nurse for however long it takes and-”

“By the time we get to the last week, you hopefully won’t need to nurse, love. Only if you want to.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll make up a schedule so you know what’s coming. What days and how often. How’s that?”

She nodded beside him, all hunched in, small. He coasted his hand down her thigh to her hip. He was expecting to need to coax her, but instead, she turned into him just that fast, spreading her thigh over his lap and straddling his hips. He grunted in surprised, caught her by the fragile cage of her ribs.

Kate Beckett was not at all what he expected.

She cupped his face in her hands and studied his eyes, all over, searching for something. “I’m trusting you,” she whispered.

“I know you are,” he got out.

“I don’t know why,” she said helplessly. Helpless? She was straddling his lap and touching his face with her fingers, dropping down to tease along his chest. Tease or explore, he didn’t know if she knew the difference, and there wasn’t really a difference.

“I know why,” he murmured. “Fate.”

She tilted her head and her mouth spread slightly, and then her fingers tripped down to the button of his jeans.

He stopped her, laced their fingers together. “You’re rushing me.”

She laughed.

“I’m not kidding,” he said, but he smiled back at her. “You’re trying to hurry through all the fun stuff, Beckett. Slow down. Take your shirt off.”  
She stiffened, sitting up straight, but her fingers left his pants and came to her own shirt.

“Off,” he insisted.

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? You first.”

He grinned back at her, though he could see what it cost her to be so brave. But he liked it. How she pushed back, even if she didn’t know what the hell she was doing.

So he lifted up from the wall, keeping his abs tight to hold himself up, and he pulled the t-shirt off over his head, flinging it away. Kate immediately rubbed her hands down his chest, scraped his nipples with her nails. She was rocking against his crotch, and that wasn’t going to work, but for now he let her explore.

She leaned in and put her lips to his chest, licked along his nipple.

“Ah, fuck,” he hissed, gripping her arms.

“Fair is fair.”

He grunted and tried not to roll his hips up into her. She was vicious against his nipple, sucking and licking. He gripped her arms harder and pushed her back, growling when her teeth caught him as she left.

“Beckett.”

“Why can’t I-”

“You can,” he snapped, shook his head. “You can. But. You won’t get milk out of me. So - shit - be gentle, love. Hell.”

She grinned, her whole face lighting up with it. “That makes you wild, doesn’t it? Like it does me. Here.” She got her hands between them and pushed under her shirt; he was fascinated by how she pushed one sleeve off first, then the other, and finally took the shirt off over her head. Totally different from his method of yanking it over by the hem. 

“Is this a gift?” he murmured, stroking his hands up and down her ribs. “Where’s the bow?”

She laughed and slapped at his hands. Her sports bra was bright pink. He shook off her hands and peeled the spandex away from her breasts but left it covering the tops, liking the way it squeezed them down.

“I meant, here, make me wild too. We’ll be even.”

“I’m not interested in even,” he said, but he ducked his head and latched onto her breast, already addicted to the taste of her.

She moaned and rode him hard, and he knew that wouldn’t work at all. She’d erupt into orgasm long before he could cool her down, so he wrapped his arms around her and turned them, laying her down on the bed.

She sighed, her legs falling from around his hips, her breasts unable to flatten with gravity because the sports bra kept them caught. But he wanted it off, and he wanted to see the fullness of her body.

“Everything?” he said. “Can I?”

“What’s everything?” She propped herself up on her elbows and kissed his neck, licking at the hard swallow of his adam’s apple. He could feel her humming and her fingers stroking very lightly along his ribs.

“I want to take your clothes off and run my hands down your body.”

She shivered and released his neck, looking at him intensely. “Yes, okay, everything.”

“You do it,” he said. “All from you, love.”

She shifted, got her hands under the band of her sports bra where it was caught at the tops of her breasts. But she paused, and her lips quirked. “I want you to do it. Undress me. Kiss me while you do.”

“Kiss your mouth?” he said, playing along. Maybe she wasn’t playing; she didn’t seem to know how to play the game to the end, only to a certain point. “Or kiss your nipple, the curve of your breast, the dip of your belly button.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “Yes, that.”

He laughed, and her face flushed, but he kissed her just to be sure she knew it wasn’t at her. Or only a little. “You’re so eager,” he hummed, nudging his mouth down to the really appealing flush across her breasts. “I love it.”

She hummed and shifted under him, rubbing herself against the hard planes of his legs and chest. He knew what she was doing, the friction and pressure she craved, but he had the sudden realization that she might not know.

He tugged the bra up and worked her arms through the straps, then he cupped the back of her neck and lifted her head enough to get it off. She settled back to the mattress with a sigh, her breasts so full that when they spread across her chest, her nipples taut and pert, there was still so much roundness to them.

Fuck, everything about her made him hard. Everything.

He dipped his head and flicked his tongue across her nipple. She cried out and clung to him, and he figured out quickly that had been too much. She was trembling.

“You’re working yourself up too fast,” he murmured, lifting his head from her breast. “Let me at least get your clothes off before I have to calm us both down.”

“I don’t want you calm,” she grinned. “I want to make you come.”

“No, I-”

“Yes,” she insisted. “I want you to come. I want to make you cry out and shake and feel like the whole world is exploding.”

Castle smiled at her, the wild mess of her hair on the pillow and her intensity. “You saying I make you feel like the world is exploding?”

She suddenly got shy, her blush spreading over the tops of her breasts and pinking her cheeks. Her fingers rubbed up and down his ribs as she squirmed. “I - yes. You make me feel really good.”

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “You’re beautiful and just lying under me makes me feel so good.”

“I know,” she whispered, her lips curving. “I can feel your - your cock right there. And I want to know what it’s like to hold it in my hand.”

Castle watched her struggle against her own shyness - or maybe just trauma. Who knew which, really. He swallowed and dipped his head to rest against her cheek. Her hand came up and cupped his nape, stroking at his hair slowly.

“I’m at your mercy, love,” he murmured. 

And before she could say anything else, Castle shifted off of her and laid down on his back at her side, sighing at the loss of her breasts. He took her hand from the mattress where it had dropped and he dragged her fingers across to his crotch.

“Here,” he said. “Like this first. I like - I like to ache with it first, for a long time. I like to make it so that it hurts when I take it out.”

Kate growled and sat up over him, her hair spilling down and caressing his bare chest. He groaned and bucked up into her even as she clamped her legs at his thighs. Her palm pressed against his crotch and she rubbed herself against his thigh.

“Careful,” he husked. “Oh, careful, love. Oh, God.”

Already he knew it was going to be damn difficult to keep her contained.

\-----


	9. Chapter 9

She was thrilled by the look on his face. 

Kate caressed the bulge in his pants - it was a bulge, it was huge - and tried not to rock her hips. She was distracting him by doing that; he kept dragging his attention to her and stilling her with two large hands clamped on her waist.

She was going to be very good. She understood it would make things a lot worse if she tore the stitches, and more than that, she understood that his having taken her to the hospital had been dangerous for him and his brothers.

“Oh, God,” he groaned. His throat arched and his whole body came up into her. She was straddling one of his thighs, leaning in over his chest with one hand braced on the mattress while the other-

Oh, the other hand was kneading his cock through his pants.

He really did like it; his hips bucked when she got near his base where she could just feel his balls. He was huge, to her at least, and she could feel him throb even with the layer of denim between them.

She ducked in close so that her hair trailed over his nipples and he grunted, eyes flashing open and locking on hers. She touched her lips to his, suddenly needing his tongue in her mouth, needing it, and she growled when he finally gave it to her.

Devastating. He fought back with his mouth, nipped at her before gentling with sure strokes, and she felt his hands gripping her ribs. She clutched at him, her breasts beginning to ache again, crushing her chest to his.

He yelped into her kiss and she tried to ease her touch against his cock, but it was impossible to go back. She couldn’t.

“Let me-” she husked, working at his zipper now. “Think we’ve had enough of hurt.”

“Fuck,” he grunted, his hands gripping hard at her sides, flaring over her back as if to hold her tighter to him. “How are you so damn good at this?”

She smiled against his mouth, kissed him slowly for that, letting her tongue tease even as her fingers slid his zipper down. She pushed her hand inside his pants and caressed the line of his cock through his briefs. 

“What color?” she murmured, nudging her nose against his. “Hm? Maybe I should look for myself.”

He let out a little noise as she sat up, dislodging his hands’ grip on her, and she glanced down at his crotch.

“Black,” she smiled. “I’m psychic.”

“You’re something,” he growled.

“Same as your t-shirts, all of them.” She loved the way he twitched at that, at her words, while she skimmed her fingernails over his cock. She felt in control once more; she’d done this before, she knew how to do this well. 

Like riding a bike.

“Kate,” he growled.

She grinned and slipped her fingers into the front flap of his briefs, felt the hot throb of his cock suddenly against her hand.

He groaned and she went still, stunned by how hard he was, how huge. A living thing in her hand, deadly and powerful, and she had all of that - she had him. 

He was shaking.

Kate let her gaze drag over his body, the sweat prickling at his abs where the muscles worked and flinched against her every touch, the hard flare of his pecs out to broad and strong shoulders, the dust of hair. His eyes were on her, watching her, heavy-lidded and drugged with arousal, and she’d never seen a man look at her like that. 

She rubbed her thumb over the hot, soft skin at his head and he yelped and jerked into her touch.

His hands were skating up and down her thighs, fingers gripping at her knees in a kind of suggestive rhythm, so she followed it. Grasping him in conjunction with the way he unconsciously squeezed her legs.

She worked him slowly at first, willing to torture him a little, loving the way his lashes fluttered as his eyes rolled back. And then it wasn’t enough to be gentle and soothing, not nearly enough.

“Take these off,” she told him. “Now.”

He lifted his hips and clumsily worked at his pants, trying to get at them. She had to shift off his thigh to give him room, and he growled and seemed to rouse to attention without her.

“Where you going?” he husked.

“Just right here,” she said, peeling down the elastic waistband of his briefs. Castle’s eyes flared with absolute lust, and he worked fast to get his pants off. Flinging them just as he had his shirt, eager.

She wished desperately to have that eagerness, that energy and focus directed right at her. On her. On her body and his hands and touching her in that place between her legs that ached so fiercely.

And then he was naked. Entirely. His body powerful and sinewed as his muscles rippled and he leaned back, on display for her. She sat by his thigh and traced her fingers over the rise of his hip bone, skied in to the thick trail of hair below his belly button.

He caught her hand with his, a tight squeeze of her fingers, and she lifted her eyes to find him staring at her.

Some of her confidence shivered.

“Careful, love. I’m - very close.”

She lifted an eyebrow, not intending to be impertinent, but he took it as such and growled at her, tugging on her hand. He wrapped an arm around her back and dragged her down against him, his kiss both vicious and needy. She sucked on his tongue when he gave it, and she felt herself grinding against his thigh.

“Stop,” he groaned. Begged. “Stop, stop, just-”

She dragged her hand down his chest and sank her fingers into the tight curls of his pubic hair. Castle grunted and bucked into her touch, and she pressed her mouth to his throat as he groaned.

She felt his groan in her lips, her cheeks, down. She felt him panting for breath under her and she curled her fingers around the base of his cock.

“Oh, fuck, oh, God,” he moaned.

She stroked down to his head and back again, his cock so thick and tall in her hand. He was big. She fit her hand around him and set up a rhythm, touching her open mouth to his nipple. He was heaving under her, gripping the back of her thigh with strong fingers, his other hand buried in the hair at her nape. She licked his chest and bit at the cord of his muscle, empowered by the pulse and throb of his cock.

“Kate,” he growled. But his voice came up on a whine. His hips pumped into her hand, a rhythm of his own, and she squeezed him as they both worked.

His arm was tight around her shoulders, clinging to her, and she pushed back on her elbow to move down his body. Her fingers still working, tugging, she came down the bellowing cage of his ribs and touched her tongue to his belly button.

“Kate!”

A terrible rictus went through him and then she felt the fierce thrust of his body up against her. His climax tore through him, hot and wet between her fingers, spurting against her stomach and his own.

She kissed his ribs and tasted it against her lips, his come, and she felt the last of it leave him, still pressed hard against his body where he held her down to him.

And then he groaned, a long breath out, and clutched her biceps to drag her up to meet his mouth. 

He seemed very grateful.

She wasn’t sure why she was so grateful too.

\-----

At first, Castle just worked on breathing.

His heart was pounding. His mouth dry. He wanted to roll over on top of her and bury his body into hers. Inside hers. But he couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t; he couldn’t do that.

He realized she was very still on top of him, lying over his chest. Very still. 

Castle lifted a hand and cupped the back of her head, his thumb fumbling into her ear. She shivered and her arms drew into her chest, against his own, and his cheeks burned as he felt his own come against her skin.

“Hell,” he croaked, shifting slowly in the bed to bring her beside him.

She lifted her chin and watched him, and he roughly combed his fingers through her hair. 

“Good?” she murmured. Her voice was heartbreakingly serious.

“So damn good. Were you not there?” He leaned in and softly kissed her, very softly, trying to be gentle. Trying to show her how much. “Never came so fast before.”

She sucked in a breath and nudged his mouth away from hers. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Castle lightly rubbed two fingers at her jaw. “Can I kiss you again?”

She gave a little laugh and touched his lips. “Mm, what if I said no?”

“I’d be really sad,” he murmured, tilting his head. He skirted the edge of her clavicle and down her bare chest to the swell of her breast. “But I’d find other things to do.”

Her breath hitched and he circled her nipple, cupped her breast in his hand.

“Oh, you would?” she whispered. “No kissing means no mouth.”

“Not everything has to happen with my mouth.” He rubbed his thumb over her nipple and she let out a groan.

“I can see that,” she gasped.

“See or feel-?”

“Okay, okay, God,” she groaned, swatting at his shoulder. “Can’t - take more than this.”

Castle immediately flattened his palm against her stomach and leaned in, kissed her even though she hadn’t specifically said yes. She kissed him back with a ferociousness that made him grunt, and if she hadn’t already given him so much already, he could easily get hard for her again.

She was just so damn responsive. He had thought it would be easy - don’t touch her there, keep her from straddling his thigh and giving herself her pleasure - but, hell. His mouth on her breasts nearly had her going over the edge. His hand was driving her crazy.

Six fucking weeks. Eight. Eight weeks. How the fuck was he going to survive this?

Kate groaned and buried her face into his neck, and he realized she was shivering. Castle wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, lips touching her cheek and back to her ear.

“Should clean up,” he murmured softly. “Both of us.”

She nodded.

“Shower with me?” he asked, fingers trailing down her spine.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Naked?”

He laughed but she stiffened. Castle gripped her hip but she lifted her head and glanced down at him, a serious look in her eyes.

“Don’t laugh at me-”

“No, no, never-”

“I don’t know what stupid rules you’ve made up-”

“No, baby, no rules. I’m sorry. I just - I really want to see you naked. Again. Touch you. But gently. I can be gentle. You know I can be-”

She kissed him roughly and shut him up - good fucking thing, he was losing it - and he reveled in the stroke of her tongue. She was a relentless kisser, and she was artless about it too, which made it intoxicating, never knowing what happened next with her.

Kate shoved away from him, rearing back. “Shower. I’m sticky. And so are you.”

\-----

She pushed down her leggings before Castle could even turn around, his arm still stuck under the spray to gauge the temperature.

She saw the way he swallowed and his eyes sharpened, and then how he scanned the length of her legs all the way down and back up again.

That made her feel pretty good. She was able to find her footing in that more than just appreciative look. He wanted her. He wanted her. It wasn’t just that she kept pushing to touch him, and it wasn’t just that any touch would work, he wanted her very specifically.

She couldn’t fathom why. But it felt good to be wanted so much, good to have his eyes on her - powerful.

“You coming?” he said, already halfway into the shower. He held out his hand for her to take, gallant in an unconscious and genuine way, and so she laid her hand in his.

His fingers were warm as they curled around hers, and she stepped over the lip of the shower stall, impressed with him first and then the shower itself second.

“God, this is amazing,” she muttered, glancing around the massive space.

“Spent all my time remodeling the bathroom,” he said, a crooked tilt of his mouth. “Shower is probably the number one thing for me - the way I relax and let the whole - whatever it is - let slide off me and down the drain.”

She held her hand out flat to the spray and felt the drumming beat. “It’s powerful.” Did he take himself in here? Grip his cock with the shower thundering over his body.

She glanced back at him, saw the easy way he watched her. Looking because he could, because he wanted to. He liked her body; she knew that. But it was something else to see him liking her body.

She felt a little ragged and bony, and to have him with those lust-heavy eyes and his hand drifting towards his groin unconsciously - it did a lot for that sense of exposure she’d felt after he’d come and her job was done.

“What are you usually washing off?” she asked. Not asking what she wanted to ask, not asking how he touched himself and why and what he thought about when he did.

“A crap mission,” he sighed. His eyes finally rose to meet her own. Not a hint of embarrassment for how he’d been devouring her. “Especially if it went sideways on me.”

“What would be sideways?” She swallowed and shifted to put her back to the spray, giving him a fuller view. “Someone dies?”

He grimaced, though his eyes dropped to her breasts, skimming like hands until his gaze lifted again. “No, love. On my missions, someone was always supposed to die. It was when they didn’t - or didn’t right away - when it got messy and I had to be more involved.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

He reached out and caught a heavy hank of her hair, pushed it over her shoulder where the water soaked the strands. “You didn’t even flinch,” he murmured.

“What?” She’d gotten used to the way he kept reaching for her. Touching. He touched a lot.

“I said I kill people for a living and you didn’t even flinch from me.”

“Why would I?” She had seen a lot of terrible things and Castle killing bad people wasn’t even on the list. 

“Why wouldn’t you?” he murmured. His eyes were steady on hers, bright morning stars. “You are a singular woman, Kate Beckett.”

Her skin flamed at the words. Words. His charm was making her silly for him. Not even charm, just a serious, awed honesty that cut straight through her defenses and right to her heart. She couldn’t imagine how he’d managed it.

“I assassinated a Colombian cartel leader, and then in the next week, I went back and poisoned his rival - a government official - so that their elected representatives would pass a bill granting the CIA full cooperation. I’ve incited riots to oust people in power who aren’t ‘friendlies’ and I’ve armed guerrilla fighters to crown those who are ‘friendlies’ king. I’ve trained more than one despot, and I’ve cut down democracy.”

Kate heard, but she didn’t see it. She knew he wasn’t lying, but the man who had carried out those boys and touched her like she deserved honor, the man who had just confessed, wasn’t the man he spoke about.

She reached out and caught his hips, tugged him to her under the spray. “I let him train me for twelve months. I let have me - and I worked hard every damn day to be exactly what he wanted. No obstacle couldn’t be overcome. I ate, slept, breathed that program, offered my veins willingly, all in the hopes of being badass enough to go back and take on Coonan. I killed a man just to prove myself, to get his damn attention, to show him I was ready. I could have escaped twice. I didn’t do it. Instead I got privileges. I murdered a man and I got special treatment for it.”

Castle stared into space somewhere over her shoulder. The thousand-yard stare. With her but not with her. “I’ve done things, Kate. Things you wouldn’t defend me for.”

She pinched his sides and his eyes finally focused on her face. She set her jaw. “I murdered your sons.”

He sucked in a hard breath. “You did the best you could, Beckett - while he had you absolutely captive. And I don’t consider that murder.”

She reached up and gripped the sides of his face, holding him still to make him see her. “Exactly,” she said. “Exactly. If you can say that of me, you have to say that of yourself.”

Castle shuddered and wrapped his arms around her body, lifting her entirely off of her feet and into him with a groan. His face was buried in her neck. Water from the shower fell down around them so that her hair dripped with it, ran into her eyes.

But she cradled his head in her arms and worked fiercely not to cry, not this time, no more crying over what was done and gone.

Castle’s head lifted and his mouth came to hers, intimate and warm. She opened for his tongue and felt the embers burning, the coil of desperation tightening in her womb. She wrapped her arms around his neck and scratched her nails through his scalp, dragging him closer.

He was running his hands up and down her back, kneading her ass cheeks only to come back to her shoulders in such tenderness. Infinite loop, surrounding her with his flesh, his mouth meeting hers again and again.

It wasn’t sex, but it was. It wasn’t that last and final act, but it was more.

She gave herself over to it, to him, and found how fully he had done the same to her. No one took; they just overwhelmed.

\-----

Her body was wonderful.

Taut skin over her shoulders leading to the warm, loose fullness of her breasts. The shower sluiced over her and ran in rivulets around her nipples, down her sides, the tops of her thighs. She was too thin, and he knew that, but it put a deep ache in his cock that clutched like a fist around his spine.

He could come again just from watching her. It was entirely deplorable of him, but he wasn’t interested in hiding it, thought actually it might make her feel good to know. Seemed to, anyway, seemed to make her radiant.

She just was radiant. Didn’t need any help from him.

“You gonna help or just stare all day?”

He grinned and took the shower gel from the shelf, squeezing it out onto his palm. He motioned her to turn around and she did, slowly, a healthy amount of skepticism - or distrust - in her face.

He replaced the bottle and slicked his hands together until the soap sudsed, wishing he had one of those spa sponges the whole time. When he stepped in closer to her, he didn’t touch her with his hands yet, he just nudged his nose in her hair until he found her ear.

“Step back into me.”

She did immediately, pushing her ass against his cock, and he definitely responded. She couldn’t miss it, she didn’t miss it, but she froze, that sense of what happens now so distinctive in her that he felt it like she’d shouted it.

He put his soapy hands on her shoulders and walked them both away from the water, and she was shivering even though the steam was fogging the glass. Castle rubbed his slick hands over the top of her chest and down to cup her breasts. 

Kate growled something low in her throat, sensual and demanding, and he made careful work of her breasts. She was very sensitive to him, she was fucking intensely responsive, and he had to pay attention, not lose himself in it.

She sank back against him, her ass trapping his cock where it was hard, pressing him up into his stomach. He thumbed her nipples for that and she moaned, shuddering, sending delicious vibrations through his groin.

If he came against her ass, at least they were in the shower.

Castle kneaded her slippery breasts and came down her torso, soaping her as he went, washing off the stains of his orgasm, dipping into her belly button. She reached an arm up and arched against him, digging into his neck with a fist.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured at her ear, couldn’t help pushing his fingers down to her pubic hair. Those curls were rough against his fingertips, dry at first, and he slowly soaked her with water and soap, cupping lightly before her thatch of hair.

Not yet between her legs. He couldn’t. He wanted to, wanted to touch and explore, expose her to the force of the water, but he didn’t know her body as thoroughly as he should. She might come, and she absolutely couldn’t come.

She moaned, began to breathe heavily, trembling again, so he retreated from her groin. Pressing his hand flat to her stomach, he coasted up her body to feel the heft of her breasts in his palms, and then up again.

She mewled and half turned into him, caught by her own feet stumbling into his. He cradled her against him with one arm, caressed her throat with his sudsy hand. He could feel her gulping for breath.

“I got you,” he gentled. “Settle for me, love. No, no, don’t arch, sweetheart. Don’t clamp down. Baby, hush, hush, I got you.”

She was whining against his throat, but slowly she was calming, beginning to quiet, and he ran a hand briskly down her back.

“Too much?” he murmured.

“No,” she got out, shaking her head. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “Want to run my hands down your legs, kiss your lips.”

She hummed and turned her mouth into his and he laughed against her tongue’s entrance, kissed her fully as she pushed up on her toes. Not the kiss he’d meant. He felt the rub of her breasts against his skin and the slick heat of their bodies, the shower, loved the way she came back for more.

When he broke, kissing the corner of her mouth, he curled his fingers in her long hair at her back. “Let me show you what I mean,” he said softly.

She mewled as he pulled away. He left her standing, dropping slowly to his knees and bringing the suds down with him. Over her ass, the soap sluicing the backs of her thighs. He kissed the protrusion of her hip bone (fix that, have to) and nosed the top of her leg. He gripped her hamstrings and kneaded the muscles, put his mouth to her knees.

He felt her hunch over, her fingers in his hair, combing water through the strands, back off his face. He tilted his head back and looked up at her, kept his eyes on hers as he moved his mouth in against her curls.

Kate gasped, arched, and he had to clamp down on her hips to keep her still. He pressed his cheek to her groin and murmured softness against her skin, trying to calm her trembling.

“Easy, easy,” he said. “Can’t keep going until you’ve settled.”

“Oh, God.”

He grinned and kissed her inside thigh, nipped lightly at her skin. She gripped his hair and groaned, her legs becoming loose against him. He had to hold her up until her knees locked, and then he turned his face into her groin.

She mewled again. He loved that sound, adored it. He was already looking forward to the time when he could make her crazy and all those noises, those fucking amazing noises, would just pour out of her.

Unfettered, unrestrained.

Castle skimmed his hand up her inside thigh and pressed open her sex. And then he kissed her lips.

Kate gasped and her knees dropped out, her body crashing down against his. He caught her easily, laughing, so fucking pleased with himself, pleased with her, and she keened against his shoulder.

“You’re so damn amazing,” he gruffed, nipping at her neck, her ear, licking her jaw. “I barely touched you, barely breathed on you, and you’re wild with it.”

She felt so strong, even in her collapse, so passionate in his arms. Fire, heat, the potential for so much.

“Oh, God,” she groaned. “Oh, God. What did you do to me?”

“Kissed your lips,” he hummed, suckling lightly at her jaw. “Just as I said I would.”

“Kissed my-” She choked and jerked her head up, astonishment flooding pink in her cheeks. “Holy fuck.”

He grinned, adoring the curse word he’d pushed out of her mouth. “Oh, yes. It will be. The second I can. Until then, love, you and I can have fun pushing your limits.”

Her eyes lit with dark fire, and then she was colliding into a kiss with him, hunger in her taste. He was in love with this woman; he wanted everything for her, with her.

Castle wrapped his arms around her and dragged her closer, pushed himself back to the tile wall and her into his lap. 

Her arm came between them and immediately she was working his cock.

\-----

He was blue fire in her hand, something of the feral neediness in his eyes felt the same as his cock. She was straddling his lap, up on her knees to really work him, rocking her body in the air and bumping into his chest.

He gripped her hips and angled her, this way and that, and she realized he was teaching her how to move, how she would fuck herself on his cock when she could, how she ought to time her thrusts to his.

He mouthed and licked at her breasts, these glancing touches as she swung in close, and she’d found a rhythm to it. Fondling his balls and pumping his shaft, always moving, riding the movement even though she was only humping air.

The shower was humid and close, and his hands kneaded her ass. She felt the tendrils of her hair slick at her neck and down her back, long and tangled, the moisture dripping down between her breasts. His tongue caught a drop and suckled and then his mouth moved to her nipple.

She groaned, her hand tightening around his cock. He moaned in response, his hips juddering below her, and he drew his knees up now, giving her a brace and himself leverage to really start thrusting. He was more mindless with it now, and she realized he was sucking hard on her breast, milking her, for his own pleasure, for himself alone, because he wanted the taste of her, the feel of her in his mouth, because it was part of his need.

She felt her womb fluttering, those furls of intensity that warned her she was too close, she was so close, but she didn’t care.

She was only giving him a hand job but he was cursing into her breast and his hips were thrusting into her hands, and she was going to make him explode. She was going to make him absolutely crazy for needing her.

“Kate,” he hissed.

His balls grew hard as steel and his cock pulsed - suddenly massive and thick in her hand - and then he orgasmed in a terrible fury. All movement and bursting need and his come thick and hot against her belly and inside thighs.

Her knees gave out and she felt her thigh trap his cock and he roared, clamping his arms around her tightly and rooting against her. She felt the slick and hot glide of his still pumping cock against her inside thigh and his own belly and she moaned into his ear, licked his neck to encourage him.

It was so damn hot, making him fall apart. He was so intense and demanding and yet he was liquid and whimpering pleas in her arms.

Please, please, Kate, baby, please.

She sealed her mouth over his and worked her tongue inside through his ragged breathing, took even that from him. He was still thrusting, and her breasts were crushed against his chest, and the shower beat down on her side and tickled her ribs, and he was mewling his need and relief into her kiss.

This was amazing and they hadn’t even gotten to sex.

\-----

Castle cracked open an eye and saw mostly the tangled curls of her hair. He shifted and groaned as his ass bones crunched on the tile floor, combed her hair back from his face and around her ear. 

“My shower is not big enough for this,” he grunted.

Kate giggled, burying the noise into his neck. Her teeth caught his tendon as if to say don’t you dare, and he didn’t, he just memorized the moment, the sound of her happy, and tightened his arms around her.

“Should wash you off,” he husked. He could smell their sex even over the tang of his shower gel. “Can you stand?”

“I can,” she said. Her lips were right against his ear. “What about you?”

“Mm, good point. My whole body feels wrecked,” he sighed, nuzzling into her cheek. She turned her mouth to graze along his jaw, and then her kiss was slow and sweet, teasing his lips.

Castle sighed, sipped from her mouth, the lazy play of her tongue inciting something tender and gentle in him. He couldn’t fathom her sometimes, how she was still here, how she could be nuzzling her mouth against his and cradling his face with her fingers.

And more - the slick of water between them, the movement of her body against his, her legs thrown over his thighs so that her sex was brushing his abs, open and intimate and erotic. He palmed her ass and rocked her into him, lightly, pushing her boundaries a little, and his own, and she was panting now and taking these nips from his lips, biting kisses.

She caught his chin in her fingers and pushed herself back from him, spray from the shower dropping water across her forehead and cheeks. “Can you stand now?”

“Maybe,” he grinned. “But maybe you should kiss me like that a little more.”

She laughed and brushed the backs of her fingers at his jaw, curled around his ear. “Oh?”

“Just to be sure, babe.”

Kate leaned in and so-lightly kissed his mouth, a tantalizing brush of lips. 

Castle caught her face in his hands, fingers tangled in her hair as he looked at her. Kate stared back at him, the thunder of water a million miles away, and she dropped her hands to his chest, twin brands that burned into his guts.

He kissed her just to keep from staring so badly, kissed her deeply because she was still here, in his arms, her breasts against his chest and her body lithe.

“Hang on to me,” he said at her ear. Immediately her arms tightened around his neck and her legs clutched at his hips. He kissed her once more, planted his feet on the tile floor, and then lifted them both up again.

Kate let out a breathless noise, squeezing him harder, and he took two steps to land them under the spray. She jerked back, though still hanging on, her laugh tumbling out of her mouth as she was drenched.

“Washing us off,” he said, grinning back as she batted her lashes in the water. Dewed with drops, those thick frames made her eyes look golden, animal. A panther in his arms.

And then suddenly she tilted her head back and let the water fall all over her body, leaning out from him so that only his arms around her braced her spine. Her breasts were lush and full, her nipples peaked, and her hair fell down in a long waterfall, drenched.

He was stunned, words knocked right out of him. One minute she was this pretty, appealing college girl with a tiger inside, and the next she was this other - woman, sensual, exotic, terrible.

Kate lifted her head and pulled herself up, arms tightening around his neck and thighs flexing at his hips, bringing her body flush against his, hands raking through his hair.

Her kiss was sudden and fierce, and she took his breath with the ferocity of her need.

“Go again?” she growled, teeth clashing against his. “I want you.”

\-----

“Turn around,” he told her, already nudging on her hips. She’d barely had the chance to stand on her own feet, but he couldn’t find the willpower to hold back.

She turned her back to him, that excited thrill in her eyes as she looked at him over her shoulder. “What are we doing?” she said, a crooked grin lifting the corner of her mouth.

“I wanna see how far we can take you,” he said, drawing his arms around her. He cupped her breast and thumbed her nipple, kneading flesh, and she groaned, tilting back into his chest.

He liked that, how instantaneous were her reactions. 

Kate dragged her hands down his forearms, tangled their fingers together. He kissed the side of her neck, suckled at the skin until he tasted that copper tang against his teeth. Marking her.

“Touch me,” she panted. “Castle, now. Touch me.”

He released her breast and she groaned, but when he cupped the other one, her head tossed on his shoulder. Her mouth burned against his jaw, her teeth tugging the short bristles where he hadn’t yet shaved.

In her distraction, he slid their laced fingers down her belly, scratching lightly through the thick pubic hair over her groin. Kate jerked in his arms, like she’d touched a live wire, and her breathing turned harsh. Just that fast.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he hummed. His lips dusted her shoulder. To make her forget how close their laced fingers were to where she wanted his touch, he squeezed her breast in his other hand.

Kate shuddered in his arms, but she hummed in her next breath, that arousing I got you now sound that he was pleased to realize he knew. Her ass wriggled and he grunted, catching on to her discovery.  
She could get him worked up like that, rocking back into him.

Fine. Let her. He wouldn’t mind coming up her back, but he’d been planning something here, and he wasn’t going to be diverted by some lovely ass grinding against his erection.

He nipped the hickey he’d left on her neck and she growled at him, but instead of Kate getting in another shot, Castle teased her sex with their tangled fingers.

“Oh, God,” she husked, her body arching against the cage of his arms, up on her toes to get more.

“Steady, steady,” he whispered, kissing her neck and down to her shoulder. He licked water from her skin and distracted her with his mouth until she was flat footed again.

And then he dragged two fingers between her legs, skirting the lips of her sex to find the crease of her thighs.

“Castle!”

“I got you, gonna be fine.” He tightened his arm around her ribs, squeezing her breast in his hand, walked them towards the wall and out of the spray of water.

She was trembling. But he still had both their hands cupping her sex, their fingers tangled. It was impossible to do anything for her at this angle, his hand bigger than the narrow space between her legs, but if she shifted her thumb, or one of his fingers twitched-

“Easy, easy,” he whispered at her ear. “Put your hands up against the wall. Brace yourself.”

“Wh-why?” she husked.

“All about the tease,” he murmured, kissing the nape of her neck as he nudged her forward. She leaned to the wall, her fingers untangling with his, releasing his forearm too, and he let out a thankful breath.

When he rocked his erection against her ass, she groaned, leaning her cheek to the tile. Her eyes fluttered shut and then came open again, but he wasn’t sure she could see much of him.

He eased his chest to her back and touched his nose to her cheek.

“Castle,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he murmured, kissing the corner of her mouth. “It’s me.”

She was breathing hard, braced against the tile wall with her body pushing back against him where he trapped her there. Chest to her back so that he felt her every heaving breath. He had one hand between her legs, nudging her thighs apart, and the sweet, hot tightness of his cock against her ass was amazing.

“Gonna rub myself against you,” he husked. “Push back into me.”

She groaned, her eyes slamming shut, and damn she was so fucking hot. He wasn’t even close to being inside her, and she responded like he was, like he would be, like it was happening to her right now while he watched her roll her hips against the wall.

His knuckles ground into the tile with the force of her thrust. But since his hand was there, she got no pressure at all.

Perfect.

Castle kissed her jaw and rubbed a hand down her side, around her flank to where his erection was trapped at her ass. He widened his own stance and adjusted himself so that he could reach his cock. When he angled himself down between her legs, he could brush the head of his cock against the tips of his fingers between her legs.

But mostly it was close, hot fit of her thighs around him, the spread of her ass cheeks at his base, and her body - her body kept moving, grinding and rolling and shifting around him.

“Fuck, Kate,” he croaked, dropping his forehead to her shoulder.

“Move,” she insisted. “Move. I can almost-”

“Don’t you dare come.”

She moaned and jerked her ass back against him. The head of his cock burned at the tantalizing closeness of her sex. His palm mostly protected her clit, but he used his fingers to spread her lips a little, close to her ass, and then he began to thrust.

“Oh, God,” she mewled. Her body pushed against his, perfectly matching his rhythm, and he let himself lean into her, hips working. It was too much, holding her sex in his hand and gripping her hip in the other, drawing her back into him. She was humping the wall, grinding, trying to get his hand to connect with her clit, but the way he held her it was impossible.

He lost himself in the humid cavern between her legs, the delicious grip of her ass. “Beautiful, you’re so beautiful,” he moaned. “Come on, baby.”

“Castle,” she begged. One of hands left the wall and came back to hook around his elbow, dragging him closer, harder. He ground into her, barely withdrawing, just rooting between her legs, killing himself with just the bare touch of her sex.

“You feel amazing,” he growled.

“Please,” she gasped. “Please, please-”

He came violently between her legs, groaning and sinking down over her back, barely able to keep himself standing.

\-----

“Your eyes are really blue,” she whispered, cradling his face and kissing him softly.

“My eyes...” he echoed, blinking at her.

She smiled and thumbed his cheekbones, framing those heavy-lidded eyes. “Blue. Bright blue. Really blue.”

“Oh.” Again, that stunned blink.

The water spilled down his nose and off, catching her bottom lip, and she leaned in and lightly licked it off.

“Oh, God, Kate,” he rasped, shivering.

“Water’s getting cold,” she told him, reminding him. He was blocking the spray so that she could barely feel it, but her toes were in the chilled water. “Babe.”

“Yeah,” he said, rousing suddenly. Before she could move, he had shifted the water hotter and dragged her into it. Scalded, surprised by his fast actions, she stood gripping his arms. His hands rubbed down her back, sluicing water to her thighs, washing her off - but it was far from businesslike.

He seemed to caress as he touched, thorough, but almost like he was remembering favorite spots, dwelling as he traveled over her skin. 

Kate slid her arms around his neck and stepped into him again, ignoring the subtle nudging of his hands as he tried to direct her into the water. Castle chuckled softly, evidently now quite with her, and he embraced her back, lifting her off her feet and putting them both right into the spray for a minute.

She pressed her face into his neck to keep the water out of her eyes, breathing in the humidity, the heat, the musk of his body. Being naked against him was electric, and while she hadn’t come - he had prevented that quite deftly - she still felt that tingling awareness of bliss close at hand.

She hoped the slight contractions she’d felt hadn’t done anything bad. It had just felt so good, so amazing, his hand-

“You ready?” he murmured.

She nodded against him, pointing her toes towards the floor, but he didn’t let her down. Castle shut the water off and hoisted her a little higher, carried her out of the shower.

“Castle,” she protested, laughing as she lifted her head.

“Shh, just go with it.”

“I can walk.”

“I can carry,” he snarked back, gripping her harder. But he did put her back on her feet on the towel he’d dropped to the tile. She stepped gingerly, glancing down, but Castle’s hands caught her hair and pulled it back from her face.

His kiss was sweet, belying the grit in his words, and he twisted her hair back in a kind of knot at her nape. She watched him as he gathered towels from the bar, draping hers over her shoulders. She pulled it around to her chest - damn, her breasts were already aching again - and started drying herself off as she studied him.

Castle was hanging up her clothes on the towel bar, in close reach, but every time he bent over, his ass and thighs flexed, body working. He wasn’t overly buff, not a muscle man, but he had thick biceps, broad shoulders, a chest wide and solid. His ribs tapered into square hips, and his thighs were just so...

Kate shivered.

“Clothes, Beckett,” he said, nodding to the towel rack. “You’ve got goose bumps.”

Not for that.

But she drew her hair forward and started drying the long, tangled strands. 

“Still not getting dressed,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. 

She shrugged, but she knew from experience that she had to dry her hair while she could. If not, it would tangle badly; it was too long. 

“Maybe you need a little help,” he murmured, stepping into her. She was startled by his sudden nearness, the breadth of him as he took the towel out of her hands.

“Castle-”

“I can do this.” He was trying to take the towel out of her hands.

“Stop, asshole. It’ll tangle-”

“Give me a minute, Kate, honey,” he murmured.

She was always put off balanced by the tenderness in his voice; he was frustrated by her constant negating him - she could see it, she could feel the tension in him - but it didn’t bleed into his voice.

He used his fingers to comb her hair back, wrapped the ends of the towel around the thick hank, and rubbed briskly. She winced as he tugged, but she let him, wondering when it would come. The little dig, that snap of revenge for her cursing at him.

But it didn’t happen. He draped the towel of the edge of the sink and reached for her leggings, curled his lip. “These leggings. Okay, clean underwear, at least. Here.” He had a new pair of those white cotton bikinis under the leggings, and he tossed them at her face.

Kate laughed, snagging them before they could drop from her nose, and she bent over to step into them. His fingers trailed up and down her spine like he was enjoying himself watching her pull on her underwear. When she tugged up the white cotton, wriggling into them, Castle was smirking at her.

“What?” she snapped.

He reached out and caught her hips, fiddling with the waistband of her underwear. “The white panties, so innocent, and then your breasts-” He lifted his hands, cupped her breasts so that she sucked in a terrible breath, arousal flooding her so fast she swayed on her feet. “What an erotic picture you make, full and ripe, and yet these thin limbs, narrow hips. White cotton. Your hair feels sensual draped along my arms.”

Kate gripped his biceps, shivering as it hit her in wave after wave, her belly tightening at the husk of his voice and the warmth of his hands against her.

“Hate to cover this up,” he murmured. His thumbs stroked teasing circles around her nipples and she tilted her head back, trying to regain her self-possession.

“Then don’t,” she said finally. “Take me to bed. I want you to touch me.”

\-----

She took him by the hand and led him out to the bedroom, though she couldn’t help glancing down the short hall to the boys’ room. Both were asleep on blankets on the floor, right in front of the open door, and she paused for a moment, caught by them.

“They’re fine,” he murmured. “Sleeping. Do you want me to close the door?”

“No, leave it. Just in case.”

“Come on,” he said, tugging on the hand still in hers. “I brought the comb with me.”

“Co-” She laughed when he brandished a black narrow comb. “You think that dinky thing will get through my hair?”

He grinned and smacked a kiss to her cheek, blowing a little so that she shirked him, wrinkling her nose and moving towards the bedroom. He followed at her back, still completely naked, and when he pushed her over the threshold, she turned around and grabbed his forearm, tugged.

“Get on the bed,” she told him. “I want to have fun with you.”

Castle laughed, both eyebrows raised. “Were we not?”

“Oh, we were,” she promised, grinning at the look on his face. “But more. More fun with you. And get rid of the stupid comb.”

“You were the one complaining it was going to tangle-”

“I’ll just pile it up,” she said, shaking her head. “Got a rubber band or something?”

“You want me to go rooting around for a rubber band while you stand there naked and promise fun?”

She bit her lip. “Mm, good point.”

“Let me comb it,” he said, looking eager enough that he might even be bouncing on his toes. She glanced down at his cock, but hmm, guess not.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Comb it. And - do you know how to braid at all?”

His mouth dropped open.

“Never mind. I’ll-”

“You could teach me,” he interrupted. “Fast learner.”

She gave him a look, but he grabbed her suddenly, swept her off her feet and threw her on the bed. She huffed as she bounced, but she really liked the way he watched her breasts, how he came right after her, crawling onto the mattress and crowding her.

He hovered inches from her face, his eyes studying her, so intense that she couldn’t breathe.

His head dipped and his lips dusted the tops of her breast, one kiss, another kiss, the tickle of his breath. “You look beautiful, Kate.”

She shivered and lifted her hand, curled it around his ear. “Thank - thank you,” she whispered. “Thought you were gonna let me have fun with you.”

“This is fun,” he hummed. “Sit between my legs.”

She startled, eyes flying open. He wasn’t kidding; he was really going to comb and braid her hair. “Okay,” she said, watching as he slid behind her. His legs were loosely crossed and she bumped her ass back over his ankles, felt the width of his cock against her flank. There was something sweet about it, being close enough that he was adjusting himself against her.

She really liked feeling him at her back. 

Kate crossed her legs and planted her elbows on her knees, giving him room to drag the comb through her hair. But of course, Castle wasn’t business-like about that either - he never seemed to equate getting a job done with her. He gathered her hair from her shoulders, pulling it together at her back, all the loose and damp ends that curled and twisted around her neck and ears.

She hated how long it was. Drove her crazy. But the way he handled her hair was sensuous, like he was appreciating every inch of it.

Castle spread his palms out along her ribs at her back and suddenly leaned forward, pressing his face into her hair. She stiffened, surprised by his tenderness, his eroticism even in this, and his hands spread at her sides and came up to cup her breasts.

She moaned, surprising herself with the ferocity of her reaction. “Castle.”

“Careful, I’ll be careful,” he husked. She blinked through the veil of lust that had fallen over her, just that fast, and he rubbed his hands over her breasts and came back to her hair.

She pressed her face into her hand and breathed, flinching when the comb pulled through her hair. But he did it easily, gathering hanks that tangled and working out the rats’ nests. Her shoulders eased as he combed, and her eyes began to sag.

Long, sure strokes through her hair, the comb scratching her scalp and then down, the individual teeth along the bare skin of her back making her shiver. Wet strands cooled her down, made her drowsy with the rhythmic tug of his hands through her hair.

After a long time, she realized he was doing it on purpose. Calming her down, calming them both down. She supposed that was a good idea, since pelvic rest seemed to equal not having any fun at all, but it was disappointing.

Her breasts were full, and she could have used-

“Hey, love, can you show me how to braid?”

Kate shivered and roused, straightening up and glancing back at him. “Mm, yeah.”

His face seemed to soften as her eyes met his, and he smiled and leaned in, brushed his lips against her parted mouth. His fingers dusted her jaw. “Here, baby, take this.” 

She fumbled with the lock of damp hair he brushed forward over her shoulder, and she had to look down to concentrate, combing her fingers through it until she got three strands.

“Wrap the outside over the inside,” she murmured, not sure really how to teach someone how to braid. She just started braiding it, going slowly, braiding it until the ends. She glanced up at him, wincing, hanging on to the end of her hair, feeling kind of stupid.

“Simple,” he smiled, kissing the end of her nose. “Now let’s see if I was paying attention.”

She huffed, but he was nudging the braid out of her hand and loosening it, drawing his fingers through her hair in the same way she’d done. His fingers felt good, soothing as they dragged at her scalp and down through her hair. His short nails caught the skin of her back and scratched lightly, making her shiver, and he lifted the hair off the back of her neck and blew softly.

Kate laughed, squirming in the bed. “What’re you doing?”

“Just wanted to make you laugh,” he said. With her hair off her neck, his mouth touched a kiss to her nape, long and wet, and she let out a slow breath, her heart thudding in her chest.

She felt him concentrating now, the slight tug at her temples as he braided her hair, but he’d started very close to the top of her head. He kept bringing in pieces from the sides, his fingers quick and deft, and after a while, she realized what he was doing.

“You little liar,” she muttered, grinding her elbow into his thigh. 

Castle yelped, jumping in the bed, clutching at her hair. “What?”

“You’re french braiding my hair, like you don’t know-”

“I’m what?”

The bewilderment in his voice, and the real hurt, made her turn her head to look at him. He scowled at her and pulled her head back around with her hair.

“Don’t move, Beckett. You’re making it harder than it should be.”

“You’re french-braiding my hair.”

“I’m doing whatever it is you did first.”

“But you started from the top, and you’re pulling in hair from the sides and-” Kate sighed, shutting up as his scowling silence went on. He was just - good. He had just figured it out.

“Is this not okay?” he said finally.

“No, it’s - perfect,” she got out.

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“It’s harder, to french braid,” she murmured. “I just showed you simple, and you took it and... ran with it. It’s good, Castle.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, though she had to stop when he growled at her, tugging on her hair. She stayed still and felt him threading her hair back and forth, and soon that sense of drowsy peace settled over her again, just that fast.

She should just keep her mouth shut, stop pushing against him so hard. She didn’t know why she couldn’t shut it off. She’d done it in the facility, of course, but it wasn’t necessary here. Not with him.

He just didn’t have that wall. She could push and push and he never hit back. At least not like this.

He had pushed her up against the wall in the shower, and if that was how he lashed out, then well - let him. 

“There,” he said, satisfaction in his voice. “Done. Shit, it’s going to unwind if I let it go. What do I do now?”

She laughed, lips curling up. “I told you I needed a rubber band.”

\-----


	10. Chapter 10

After finding a rubber band, Castle managed to ease her back against his chest, half-reclining in the bed with his arms around her, through a rather subtle manipulation: he played with the tail end of her braid.

He circled her breast with the light, damp touch of her braid, humming almost inaudibly, enjoying himself, for sure, but definitely more intent on putting her to sleep. Or at least helping her unwind to the point where she wasn’t buzzed and frustrated.

Because frustrated she must remain.

Castle traced the round slope of her breast with the ends of her hair, digging his chin into her shoulder. She lifted her hand and caught the side of his face, stroking her fingers along his cheek in the same circles he drew on her skin.

“You got a thing for hair?” she murmured, barely speaking.

“Just yours,” he whispered back. He tickled her sternum with it. “Soft.”

“Too long,” she sighed. Her fingers rubbed aimlessly now, scratching back and forth across his unshaven cheek. “I’m tired. You did this on purpose.”

“Little bit,” he chuckled. “You did say to touch you.”

She gave a whiny moan and wriggled her hips side to side against him, but it was mostly just cute. He grinned and pressed it into her neck so she could feel how pleased he was, and her fingers curled at his ear.

“I could dip your braid into ink and paint you with words,” he murmured, tracing the edge of her areola. 

“Words,” she roused, opening her eyes. “What would you say?”

“Mm, dirty things, all the things I want to do to you,” he gave, voice husky with all the words he couldn’t say. The ones he’d have to put in hidden places, words like love and forever and mine. 

“Tell me,” she whispered.

“Over this breast,” he started, trailing her braid in a long starting stroke for the m. “My mouth over you.” He slipped the curled ends of her hair in approximation of the word. “My lips cradling your flesh and my tongue circling your nipple.”

“God,” she breathed. “The other?”

“The other breast,” he hummed, dragging her hair across the valley between them and over to the other. “Hm. I love them both equally, which is good practice for twins, I suppose.”

She gave a puff of laughter and scratched at his ear, rubbed her thumb at his earlobe.

“You like that? Twin mounds. Creamy and beautiful. That’s what I’d paint across you. Full, lush, these geminis. Helen and Clytemnestra.”

She laughed, turning her face into his jaw, kissing him softly. “Mythology?”

“Mm,” he answered, finding her lips and kissing her back. “Would you rather Arsu and Azizos?”

“Who are they?”

“Gods of the morning and evening star.”

She grinned and nipped his skin. “You better not be naming my breasts, Castle. Otherwise I’m naming your cock.”

He winced. “What, exactly, would you name it?”

“Oh, is this conditional? You’ve already named them, but-”

“No,” he growled. “Though I do like morning and evening star.” He caressed her nipples with her hair and grinned when she sighed into the touch.

Not enough, not nearly enough, and he knew it wasn’t. But he hoped it was more of that fun.

“Not naming your cock Apollo,” she mumbled. Her hand dropped from his ear, her arm sliding down and resting on top of his spread thigh. 

“Mm, too bad.” Castle cradled her a little more, dragging her hair at her sternum so that it was more soothing and less stimulating, and he could see her eyes beginning to droop.

She would fall asleep soon. Sleep was good. The way the nurse had described what had been done to her insides - still haunted him. He wanted her to sleep - rest - as much as possible. 

Soon enough, the boys would wake and want to play, want to see her, demanding her time and attention. He’d try to feed them dinner and they’d nurse - and well, yes, okay, he was hoping she let him lay her down and put his mouth over these dusky, dark nipples that rose from the lush globes of her breasts.

Fuck, he was so sunk. 

No matter what he did, everything came back to how much more he could touch her.

\-----

She must have been sleeping hard, because she came awake with a grunt and wiped the back of her hand over her cheek.

“Hey.” A whisper and then the dark presence near her head - but she could smell him. Castle. His soap. Made her smile.

“Hey,” she croaked, wincing when her voice cracked.

“Need some water?”

“No, fine,” she got out, trying to shift in bed. She was curled tightly on her left side, Castle kneeling before her, his elbows planted on the mattress. His fingers were rubbing slow circles at her ear; she couldn’t quite bring herself awake.

“Hey, before you nurse the boys tonight, I think we have to give you the elixir.”

“Why?” she cried out, closed her eyes when she heard herself. “No, I know.” She took a tight breath. “I know. Still waking up. Give me a second.”

“Sorry, yeah,” he whispered. His lips ghosted the side of her face. “You were sleeping pretty hard. Even turned the light on, nothing.”

He sounded - strange. Worried? She opened her eyes in the darkness and saw the way he was crouched over her, dressed now in a black t-shirt and dark combat pants. His feet were bare though; she could see the details of his toes where they gripped the floor.

“You have hair on your toes,” she mumbled.

Castle cupped the side of her face. “Not sexy?”

She smiled slowly, glanced at him. “Wouldn’t say that. Little bit sexy. Very much a man.”

He grinned back and touched a kiss against the corner of her smile. “I like that. Very much a man. Since you’ve held my cock in your hands, weighed it.”

“It’s been a lovely introduction, Agent Castle.”

He laughed at that, and bounced the mattress. “Come on. You’re awake. Up.”

She struggled upright, pushing off against the mattress, and Castle held out a black t-shirt exactly like the one he was wearing. She wrestled her way into it, though she thought Castle was ‘helping’ a little there, his fingers stroking her ribs. She yanked it down over her head and pulled out the braid, pressed the end to her lips.

“I did a good job, didn’t I?” he said, so proud of himself. Like Wyatt had been when he’d held up his rag doll to her.

“You did a great job, baby.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “So. Elixir. How are we doing this?”

“Well, I had Alex and Ben going over the last few months of your medical charts, just - trying to get a handle on where he was with this. Looks like an IV?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, probably. If they weren’t draining me they were filling me up.”  
Castle’s face blanched. “Draining you?”

She sighed and waved it off. “Breast pump. But I don’t mind. The boys got what they needed. And you said that breastfeeding them gives them good stuff from the elixir, right? So that’s just what I had to do.”

Castle swallowed hard and nodded, though she could see that it didn’t sit well with him. Well, too damn bad. She’d done it, and she’d done what she’d had to do.

“So you’re going to stick an IV in me for-”

“No,” he said, a fast jerk of his head. “No, we don’t have that kind here. I’ve only done it as a shot. And that’s what I took out of Alex’s fridge.”

“A shot?” she said slowly, thinking about it. “Just once then. One shot and then done?”

“Yeah. That’s how I did it when I was a teenager. And Alex and Ben still. Colin hasn’t needed them since... I think twelve? I’ll put it in your thigh, give it some time before it gets to your heart, just in case.”

She nodded, a strange tremor in her hands as she sat there talking about getting stuck again. Guinea pig. Experiment.

“Hey,” he said, catching her hand. “Kate. One shot and that’s it. No waiting around with the damn IV, no draining.”

She gave him a quick smile, more strength in it than she felt. “I can already tell - I think. That I haven’t had it.”

“What? The elixir?”

She nodded, wincing. “My - body hurts. Aches. My joints, behind my teeth. Like my bones are...”

“Not getting enough,” he scowled, rubbing a hand down his face. “I shouldn’t have let it go on so long. I should’ve given you a shot in the hospital but I was afraid with all the damn blood work they were doing-”

“Castle,” she said, squeezing the hand still in hers. “Don’t. Can’t change the past. Believe me, I know. Just - give me the shot, okay?”

He studied her, their eyes connected and unflinching. She tried to be anyway.

“All right.” He kissed her mouth roughly. “Let me get it ready.”

\-----

Castle checked on the boys once more, but there was literally no furniture in the extra bedroom; they couldn't get into trouble with nothing but a few blankets on the floor. He didn't even have curtains or blinds in the window - just blackout paper taped over the glass.

He closed the door quietly and glanced once more to Kate sleeping sprawled over the mattress. She'd fallen asleep naked, but when he had woken her for the shot, he'd helped her back into the t-shirt, certain she wouldn't want to wake without some kind of armor. 

He knew the feeling.

She'd be asleep for a good long time, after an injection of elixir. And the boys had nursed tonight, so their little bodies would be working on metabolizing the serum all night for sure. With all three of them out cold, and elixir-heavy, Castle knew from experience that he had a solid six hours of free time without worry. And then after that, probably another two before anyone was up again.

Colin hadn't called him back. So his brother was out of reach and couldn't be counted on for help right now. Castle was trying not to think about how - if Kate wasn't here - he'd have been out there looking for Col, clean up his messes, just as his brother had said.

Not tonight. He had a list of essentials and it had to be addressed.

So Castle wrote her a quick note containing his number - his handwriting was deplorable - and then he propped it up on the empty space next to her pillow, left a burner cell beside it. 

Then he had a thought and snatched the note back, added a heart.

That was stupid. What the hell was he doing?

But he stood hunched over the mattress, feeling the heat and presence of her all through his body, and he put the note back as it was, heart and all.

Shit, he was a fucking moron over her. And so fast. It was laughable, and maybe pathetic, and his father would have flipped his shit.

Well, then, he was doing something right, wasn't he?

Always do the opposite. That had been Colin's sardonic mantra for a decade. Castle knew it wasn't entirely wrong, if it was entirely stupid.

He brushed her hair off her neck and leaned in, dusted his lips at the pulse of her heartbeat there under his fingers. She didn't stir - she wouldn't for hours - so he stood up and faced his work for the night.

Castle grabbed the empty duffle off the floor and slung it over his shoulder, then headed out. He set the alarm near the front door, putting in the code, and then he locked it behind him. He had a moment's debate - should he have told her the alarm code in case she wanted out? - but he couldn't second-guess himself now. He'd explain how the security worked when she woke tomorrow.

The hall was empty, the landing bare. It was nearly midnight, and while that was late, it wasn't late for Harlem. He saw two older men on the stoop as he left, and one of them gave him a head nod, but Castle wasn't sure the guy actually knew him. He stood out in this neighborhood, unfortunately, but so had most of the men his father had always sent after him, to spy, and so it had worked in his favor.

Now he wished he'd thought to darken his hair. His skin was yellow-gold from the last mission he'd done in Colombia, setting up the long-range Plan C which would hopefully infiltrate the drug cartel and - most importantly - the guerrillas who were backed by them. 

Damn. He hadn't thought about Salome in weeks. He'd have to - he couldn't let that drop, but at the same time, the idea of going back to her and doing the same old things, playing the same fucking games...

It wasn't at all appealing. She was no longer appealing. She'd had this mystique a few months ago, this ideal of supreme power and disconnect wrapped in a feverish intensity that he'd found so damn intriguing. He'd held himself off for weeks, watching her, captivated by how cold she was.

She was himself.

He'd liked that. How had he ever liked that?

And then he'd gotten home, and Colin had found the three facilities on a schematic report at one of Black's offices, and they'd started plotting.

And then Kate.

Nothing was the same again. Nothing was the same. Oh, God, nothing was the same.

He didn't stop short in the middle of the sidewalk, but it was a damn near thing. He kept going only because of training, but his mind was reeling. Reeling. With Kate, everything had changed. Everything. His whole life was upside down, and yet it didn't feel like that. It felt like the world had shifted into place, like he'd been out of joint since childhood and now came the great adjustment back.

Back where? Where he was supposed to be.

With her. With those two boys. 

And a shitty apartment in Harlem with an empty guest bedroom and no food in the fridge - no damn plates in the cupboards - that wasn't good enough.

He had a long six hours ahead of him, working to coordinate everything, to find essentials and get the rest nailed down, and if he could also find his brother, then he was coming out on top.

But Colin knew how to hide and how to fare for himself, and Castle would have to trust that Col would come back in time. When he could. When his head wasn't drowning.

\-----

Kate woke. Woke tired. Aware of existence, and the heavy feeling.

For one heart-stopping moment, she was back. Back there. Caged.

Her heart wasn't beating. She was so heavy that her lungs refused to draw in breath. She could hear the silence of her whole body in the room, the empty silence.

And then her eyes dragged open and she saw a pillow and the stretch of mattress with brown sheets, and night coming in a window and all around her, the moon touching light fingers over her face and spilling down the bed. 

There was a phone.

And that, more than the color of the sheets or the moonlight, convinced her.

Castle. Real, this was real.

Her heart thumped. Stalled. Caught again.

A phone was on the pillow beside hers with - paper - a receipt she thought, something scribbled on it in black sharpie. Her eyes wouldn't focus, but she knew that feeling, had no trouble with it. She let herself float on that feeling, the nothing and the drift, and this time it didn't matter at all.

This was real, not the other. This was her tomorrow morning when the moon set and the stars disappeared. There would be blue sky - or grey clouds of a thunderstorm, she wasn't picky - but sky and the boys crawling into bed with her and she would pretend it was a Saturday morning no matter the actual day of the week and they would doze and see each other when their eyes opened and stay there until the light hit the bed and their faces full on and then they might get up and find lunch.

She could hear every slow heartbeat now, the sluggish slide of blood through her body, in her fingertips and back up to her heart again.

And Castle - she realized the picture in her head included him already. Castle would be bringing the boys into her, leading them by their little hands as they came on the carpeted floors they didn't like. Castle would be corralling the boys to keep them from rolling off the mattress and wrestling them like James clearly loved to do. Castle would be making them lunch to entice them out of bed.

He wasn't here now, but he'd left her a note she couldn't quite force herself to take and a phone, and that was sweet and thoughtful and - and considerate. Kind. It was kind. And now tears had slipped out of her bleary eyes and her head pounded with the build up of emotion she didn't want to let loose.

But she was alone and there were no cameras, no observers waiting to mark down her reactions to the elixir, and so she let the tears slide crosswise over her nose and be absorbed by the pillow. And it was just fine, the crying, because it was over. It was over and today was the last day she wouldn't believe in freedom, today was the last day she let herself distrust.

Tomorrow with the sky and those boys - even without the man - tomorrow was going to be different. She was already different.

Mom. 

She hadn't the energy to suppress and she let it wash over her, let it take her. Her mom, her dad, how they had loved her, how her mom had kept her eyes on Kate with such grief, such horror, fixed there as Coonan had dragged her away. Her dad who had gone looking for her, who had never stopped looking for her.

You can stop looking, she told them. I'm safe. I'm okay - I'm going to be okay, Mom. 

And her dad. Her dad. His love for her driving him out too far, where he had thought to reach her, to find her. I'm found, Daddy.

She had done it herself, but Castle had been the one to get her out of there. She'd had no plan past getting to the scalpel and keeping the element of surprise. She had known there would be agents, she knew every person in that damn place, and she had known it would be impossible. 

I knew what I was doing. 

And yet, Castle. 

It was strange. In some ways, he reminded her of her mother - easy to laugh, strong personality, scarily intelligent and willing to use it. And in other ways, her dad - quiet and steady, never letting you down, taking care of everyone. Maybe she wanted to see her dead parents in him, or maybe she was simply clinging to the first normal human being she'd found.

No. No, he wasn't normal. That did him a disservice.

She was falling asleep again, her thoughts dissolving into images she couldn't control. Her mom's low laughter at the dinner table - the dinner they'd never made it to - her father's lips quirking as he tried to remain impassive after the joke he'd just told. She was there, eating with them at the restaurant, twirling spaghetti on her fork like she was eight years old again, and she was. She was swinging her feet under the table and her dad put his hand on her knee to remind her of her manners. She was watching her mother charm the whole wait staff and garner special favors, and she knew her father was proud of her mom, and she didn't mind all the talking when she got dessert, this mound of ice cream on top of a warm, gooey brownie and how it filled her mouth. 

Then her father's hand on her knee turned insistent and she turned her face up to him, licking the corner of her mouth free of chocolate sauce, and her dad said, it's time for you to go, honey.

She tried to protest but the brownie had her mouth sticky and now her mom was stroking the top of her head, and combing through her always-tangled hair and kissing her temple, time to go back, sweetheart.

And then she was awake, but not awake, dreaming of here and not there, and her heart started beating again, slowly, thump. Thump. 

Thump.

She fell asleep again.

\-----

When Castle finally got home, heavy with equipment and bags - way more than the single duffle bag he’d brought - he had to quickly disarm the alarm system before it alerted the CIA. He hadn’t thought of that, of how encumbered he’d be, and it was hard to get the fucking numbers-

Oh, there. Good. Shit. Okay, he was going to have to change that. The alarm couldn’t go out to the CIA, not now. Not with Kate and the boys - and evidence of them - all over the place.

Castle turned and closed the apartment door, and then he began gathering the bags he’d dropped in his haste to get the alarm. He separated it out into groceries versus supplies, and quickly got the frozen items in the fridge’s icebox.

And then he heard a thump, and a string of giggles.

Castle paused, looking past the open freezer door, but the living room was empty. He listened, ears straining, and then he heard scrambling past the wall.

Castle let the door swing shut and stepped around his purchases, heading for the junction cut-out beyond the living room where the two bedrooms diverged. He opened Kate’s door and glanced inside, quickly, but she was asleep.

The boys then. Playing around.

With what?

He tapped softly on the guest room door, a warning maybe, and then he opened it. 

The blankets were strewn across the floor, dragged out and rearranged, and the trail led towards one corner of the room, just to the left of the door, where both boys were giggling. 

And wrestling each other. Or something. James was standing on top of Wyatt’s back and Castle had a sudden insight into how often and how well these two had worked together. To what end, he had no idea, but it could be early training or it could be brothers looking out for each other.

“Boys,” he said. And when they didn’t stop wriggling, “James. Wyatt. What’re you guys doing up?”

Wyatt jerked at the sound of his name, almost like he hadn’t even heard Castle before, and it caused James to topple. But the boy caught himself and scrambled back to his feet as if he was ready to defend them.

Castle stood there stunned for a moment, and then he slowly sank to the floor. “Okay,” he husked, nodding. “Okay, I see. I’m sorry for scaring you.” He dropped his legs flat and held out a hand. “If you want. Don’t feel that you have to.”

James was the one who came to him first, the voyager, the adventurer, but his route was circuitous, heading away before circling back to him. Castle put both hands out now, palms up, and reminded himself to be gentle, be still. 

James stood at his feet for a long time, and then he finally came forward, not reaching out but not avoiding Castle’s hands. 

“Hey, here we are,” he murmured to the boy. Castle curled his fingers around James’s hip. “Want a hug? Make you feel better.”

He moved slowly, one arm wrapping around James’s legs, lifting him off his feet even as he cradled the back of James’s head. 

“Hey,” he whispered. His heart was thudding in his throat as he held his son. “Hey, it’s okay.”

James was stiff against him. Castle realized the boys hadn’t been alone with him since the facility, not without Kate somewhere in sight. Wyatt still holding back, pushed against the corner and waiting for the outcome. What had Kate said she’d done with them, to reassure them? 

Whispered their names in their ears.

He brushed his cheek against the top of James’s head and then put his mouth to the boy’s ear. “James. James, it’s okay now. You’re okay.”

James laid his head against Castle’s shoulder, a brief moment, and then he sat up straight again and wriggled out of Castle’s arms. But Wyatt came now, crawling fast rather than walking, and he climbed into Castle’s lap.

“Hey, Wyatt. You guys are okay, you know. I just didn’t want you disturbing your mom.”

Wyatt’s face lifted up to his, and he grunted. James came back then and grabbed onto Castle’s shirt for balance, leaning in. They were both suddenly very attentive, watching and studying him.

“Hey, what’s up, guys?” He rubbed a hand over Wyatt’s back. “What’s the face about?”

Wyatt grunted again, his lips smacking as if trying it out. But James shifted his gaze past Castle and towards the wall, as if seeking Kate. Seeing Kate, and maybe he did, something in his head telling him where she was.

“Looking for your mama?” he said quietly.

But Wyatt made that same urgent noise and crawled up to stand on Castle’s thighs, rocking on his feet.

“Oh, is that it?” he said, grinning at them. “You want your mama.”

Wyatt was studying his mouth, as if to copy the movements of his tongue and lips, but James was listening, he thought, listening to both the presence of his mother and the words Castle said.

“Mama,” he said again. “That’s what you can call her. She’s your mom, and she loves you both, you know. She did this for you.”

“Mmmm-muh,” Wyatt said, smacking his lips. James looked as startled as Castle felt hearing that out of Wyatt’s mouth.

“Yeah, Wyatt, that’s it,” Castle finally got out. “Mama. Mmm. Won’t Mommy be so proud to hear you say her name?”

“Mmmuh!”

“Yes, exactly, that’s so good, Wyatt. Keep trying. Mama, mama, ma-”

“Muh, muh, muh,” Wyatt chanted. His whole face lit up as the sound left his mouth and Castle laughed, leaning in to kiss his cheeks. 

James whined and butted in against his arm, and Castle turned, opening his embrace to the boy so they could both be in his lap. “Not leaving you out, kid. Come on in, James. You’ll get it eventually.”

He got them both situated in his arms and then he stood up, making Wyatt actually gasp, startled by the movement. Castle laughed and squeezed them both a little tighter. 

“I got you. Come on. Let’s check out the cool stuff I got for you guys, huh? And while you play with my duffle bags, I’ll go in and check on your mom.”

He was kissing both of their cheeks before he even realized the affection had come over him, and then he carried them out to the living room. He settled James first, and then Wyatt just to his side, and he reached past them to unzip one of the black bags he’d brought stuff home in.

All the little toys he could find that said 12-24 months. 

Wyatt’s face lit up dramatically, and he dived for the bag, grabbing things and pulling them out. The kid even worked the zipper all the way down so that he could get out a huge dump truck, some fine motor skills there that seemed impressive coming from a baby.

The two boys had a quiet teamwork about it, Wyatt manipulating the bag and items inside and then handing them off to James who arranged each toy very precisely in the empty living room.

Castle ducked their heads with a hand, and then he rose to his feet. “All right, stay here and play. Let me check on Kate.”

“Mmmm,” Wyatt agreed, beaming up at him.

“Yeah, mama. Very close, my man. You’re doing good.”

\-----

“Kate?” he whispered.

When she didn’t stir, Castle knelt down on the floor and put his elbows on the mattress, leaning in over her. He’d gotten back with time to spare, so she might still be out for a while; he didn’t expect her to wake.

He reached out and touched his thumb to her temple, smoothing back her hair. Her skin felt clammy, sweat-damp, and he shifted forward to get a look at her face.

Mouth parted, lashes on her pale cheeks. He combed back her hair and pressed his fingers to the side of her neck.

A fever. He frowned and felt for her pulse, glanced at the second hand of his watch, counting as it went through fifteen seconds. Some quick multiplication told him her heart rate seemed a little fast for at-rest.

“Kate?” he said, raising his voice just slightly.

She didn’t move.

After more than twenty-four hours off the elixir and breastfeeding both boys five times since then, a fever and an erratic heart rate weren’t not normal, but he was growing concerned.

The burner phone was still beside her, though it had fallen from the pillow. He searched for the receipt where he’d left his phone number, skimming through the sheets and looking along the floor, unwilling to have it unaccounted for. He finally discovered the note curled in the palm of her hand.

He released her fingers, touching his own along her wrist to check her pulse, and then he pushed the receipt into his pocket to give her later. When she memorized it, he could destroy it.

“Kate?”

She was out. And he had expected that - that was normal - but the elevated temperature and her thudding heartbeat wasn’t by the book. It was understandable since her metabolism was working through some complex proteins and mineral compounds created by his father’s program, but it wasn’t...

It wasn’t perfect. And the way his father had protected Beckett, the way he’d talked about her in his notes, Castle had expected an ideal response.

“Kate?” he said again, nudging on her shoulder.

This time, she groaned and buried her face into the pillow.

“Hey,” he said, stroking the hair back from her cheek. “Kate, love, how do you feel?”

“Fine.”

He laughed softly and she turned her head, looking at him. He leaned in and brushed his lips against her warm forehead. “Yeah, automatic response, I get it. How do you actually feel? Because your temp is up and your heart rate is a little fast for sleep.”

“Yeah,” she croaked out.

“Yeah, what, baby?”

“Yeah, that. Happens.”

“Every time?” he said, so far hunched over her that his elbows were making a dip in the mattress that she was sliding into. “Kate, this happens every time?”

“Mm, yeah,” she said. Her voice was rough with sleep. Her eyes closed again.

“Kate, wake up.”

She startled awake at the sharp tone to his voice, but he needed her with him for a bit longer. 

“Give me some details here, Kate. This is information I need to know. I’ve got my computer set up in the living room with the schedule and spreadsheet, all of your medical history, but there was nothing about an erratic heartbeat.”

“Erratic?”

He touched two fingers to her neck again, counting. Her eyes caught his, and something of his concern seemed to translate. Or at least, he felt her pulse jump and stutter under his touch.

“Erratic. Speeding up, skipping beats. Your heart rate does this often?”

She blinked. “Some - sometimes. I wake up to it.”

“It wakes you up,” he hissed.

Kate tried to draw her legs up but she seemed unable to gather enough energy to move. He knew that feeling too, from the early days, how the elixir punched right through you and pressed you down so heavy.

“Only recently,” she whispered. “Last few months.”

“Okay,” he said, shifting to sit with her on the bed. He got his arm under her shoulders and pulled her into his lap, her head on his thigh. “Okay, go over this with me, Kate. Is it after an injection-”

“I never had shots,” she mumbled. “IV.”

Right, IV. He knew that - it was in her notes. “I - should have done a drip,” he said. “Somehow. Fuck. I shouldn’t have pushed it in so fast.” But he’d only had the shot he’d stolen from Alex; he didn’t know how to dilute it.

“Didn’t cause this,” she said, limp against his lap. “I’m so tired. Can’t I sleep?”

“Soon,” he promised, stroking back her hair. “Soon, love. I promise. But I need to know what I did wrong.”

“Nothing wrong,” she sighed. “Just happens.”

“It’s not supposed to be happening,” he told her. “Your heart shouldn’t race while you sleep.”

“Wakes me up,” she mumbled. “Nightmares. But I’m okay. Always starts again.”

Always starts again? “Always - fuck, Kate. Are you saying your heart stops?”

She shifted on his thigh, sighing long and deep. “Yeah. But it comes back. Always comes back.”

So far.

\-----

She found herself whining as he slipped the pulse-ox on her finger, worming away from him on the mattress. It was bright orange and mounted like a wristwatch. Something cheerful about that bright orange plastic with its black texturized rubber, and apparently it took her pulse as well as measuring her oxygen saturation levels. The grey wires led to the sensor on her finger, and all of it felt heavy.

"I know you don't like this," he said softly. "I know."

"I'm sorry," she dragged out. "Shouldn't complain. I never complain. I'm just tired."

"It's okay to complain," he said. He had a remote display for the pulse-ox, and he was fiddling with it now, and she turned her head on the thin pillow to watch.

He had nice hands. Familiar hands. But soft fingertips and callouses on the palms; she remembered that, remembered the touch of his fingers across her cheek as he brushed back her hair and how he cradled her jaw. "Castle."

He turned to look at her and the stupid pulse-ox hand flopped dumbly around on the mattress, too heavy for her to pick up right now. She was so tired and her body was weighted. 

"What, baby?" he murmured, wrapping those fingers around her bicep and stroking at the skin on the inside, the soft skin, the vulnerable places. Goose bumps erupted over her arm and he grinned.

"No, I... don't know," she mumbled. If he thought that was going to stabilize her racing heart-

He leaned in and kissed her forehead, lingering long enough to really make her heart jump, and she felt his smile against her skin.

"You're a bully," she muttered. "And why're you kissing my forehead, like I'm a child. Kiss me on my-"

He silenced her with his lips, not quite rough but something, and she caught the back of his neck with her other hand, gripping hard to keep him there. He broke from the kiss only enough to brush his lips over hers, arousing and raw, and she moaned when he lifted away from her.

"The monitor is going crazy," he grinned. "Tells on you."

"I don't care," she muttered. "Get back here."

"Later, love," he promised. "I need to attach the leads to the heart monitor."

"Damn it," she sighed, all the fight drained out of her. Exhaustion was brutal, and it sat on her chest like an elephant. "This isn't sexy at all."

"No, but you more than make up for it, all mussed in my bed."

Her eyes jerked open to see him, but he wasn't joking. He looked very serious as he studied her, his fingers stroking down the side of her face. She didn't know what to say now, what was supposed to be said when the man you wanted was trussing you up to medical equipment.

"You can sleep now," he said then, withdrawing his hand from her face to cover her bicep again, dwarfing her arm. "The monitor will tell me if something is wrong."

She could sleep. She really could just slip away. But she needed to be awake for the heart monitor. She needed to know, to see him do it. Only him. "Just tape on the leads," she sighed.

He lifted a finger from her arm and rubbed against her shirt where the cotton slid over her ribs. "All right. If you're ready."

No. But. "Yeah."

He extracted the heart monitor from a brand new looking box, unwound the wires from their little spools, began hooking it all up. The monitor was small - handheld - and she watched him power up the display screen.

"It's wireless," he said. "But it comes with leads for better quality. Right now, I'd like use the sensor-pads on you, Kate. If you can take it."

"You're trying to dare me into doing it," she muttered.

He flashed her a little grin.

"You already know me so well," she sighed, shifting in the bed again. The heaviness made it difficult to protest anything too forcefully. "But after you get what you want from it-"

"Then we'll let it be wireless. Plus I stole some tech from Ben which will relay the EKG straight to my watch." He flashed her his wrist on which sat another orange plastic thing, the companion to the pulse-ox. 

"Oh."

He touched her hip and fingered the hem of her shirt. "You ready?"

"Yes," she gritted out. "It's not like it hurts."

"No, but it's not fun to be wired up. Believe me, I know."

She cast her eyes up to his and saw the haunting on his face, the grimace he tried to play it off with. He'd been a science experiment his whole life, and while she was complaining about a damn heart monitor, he had probably been through much worse.

"I know you do," she murmured. "And this is different. You want to keep me alive."

His face crashed, just that fast, his whole soft tease collapsing in. "I don't want you to die," he croaked. "Please don't die."

She blinked, stunned by - everything. "I won't. I'm not."

Castle shook his head like a dog, lifted his thumb and finger to pressed into his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

She couldn't move her heavy, wired arm, but she managed to roll onto her side and lean her cheek against him where he still was holding onto her. She pressed in closely, and while she wanted to offer something more than this, she found herself being tilted towards heavy sleep.

She was going to fall asleep on his arm.

\-----

The pet-gates were his best idea ever. Ever. And he'd had some excellent ideas in the field, even behind a desk coordinating missions, but this was amazing.

The boys were confined the the guest bedroom, all their toys behind that step-gate, but the door stayed open so that he could easily check on them and Kate could even see them from the bed against the far wall. He had found a single toddler cot - it was basically just a mattress on a low frame with bars on three sides and half of the open fourth, and it took Castle no time at all to set it up. 

The boys liked crawling on and off the mattress even while Castle wrestled the bedsheet over it, and he'd bought two soft blankets, the thin kind, the kind he'd seen in movies that kids dragged around with them. Wyatt really liked his, and he'd started carrying it with him, but James clung to the ragged doll Kate had made for him, chewing on it and - in a moment when Castle had surprised him - sucking on his thumb.

The second James had known he had Castle's eyes on him, he had jerked his thumb out of his mouth and avoided Castle's look.

All of it was rather heartbreaking when he thought about it too long. The boys were just - and then to know that Kate had been, that she'd had it worse? That killed him. It mangled his heart in his chest.

"There, have at it," he said finally, thumping the mattress to be sure the sheet stayed in place. 

Wyatt crawled to one corner, bringing the blanket and a green ball in his hands, and then he leaned back against the railing to survey his new kingdom. James followed, but he used the half-railing to climb up and then over, the doll stuffed into his mouth, landing on one hand and shoulder on the mattress.

He was very good at obstacles, Castle noted. Impressive. Wyatt seemed able to manipulate their toys or work more intricate problems. They were a good team that way, and they had evidently learned how exactly to get what they wanted.

"Well, boys, what do you think? This is your bed. Your mom thought you should be together."

Both boys perked up at mom and Castle had the idea that the word had meaning for them now, as if it was something new and shiny and they were curious.

"Yeah, mommy's sleeping, but I'm keeping track of her. Don't worry. Here, Wyatt, want this?" He reached back and grabbed the stuffed animal that been included with the bag of chew toys, held it up for James's inspection. "I think it's supposed to be a bear. Oh, or a rabbit? A bunny, I guess."

Wyatt wasn't shy at all about reaching for the bunny, grabbing it by one of the floppy ears. Yeah, definitely a bunny; Castle hadn't been paying attention. 

"It's soft. You like that? No, don't worry, I won't take the doll Mommy made. You can keep that." He’d spotted the rag doll tucked in under Wyatt’s blanket, like he’d been hiding it. Keeping it very close, very secret.

Wyatt clutched the bunny to his chest and squirmed back to the corner of the bed. Castle wondered if they had some idea that they were required to stay in the bed. Huh.

Well, it would just take time. For all three of them. Time to get used to freedom and normal life. 

"Hey, boys," he said quietly, reaching out to comb through James's hair, pushing that dark flop of bangs back from his forehead. "You look like your mom. Distrustful of real life. But it's okay. James. Wyatt. It's okay. Play with your toys while I figure out what to do with mommy."

He kissed their cheeks, one after another, and still the boys just stared silently at him. He figured the best thing to do would be to just leave them alone. Give them space to loosen up, be kids.

Be babies. They were little boys, tiny boys, too serious. Too much knowledge about how awful the world was.

He stood up slowly and backed away, but his foot hit a truck and it went rolling across the carpet. Wyatt giggled - a short and involuntary sound - and he pushed back into the railings and turned his head away. Expecting something bad to happen.

"That was pretty funny," Castle said, squatting down slowly in the middle of the room. He was glad his frame blocked the boys from Kate's view, hoped she was asleep anyway, and not witnessing this. "Wyatt. Want to play? Come here. Let's play with the truck."

He had the monitor on his wrist; he'd know if something happened. It seemed important suddenly to lure these boys out of the bed. He had a feeling they'd stay just like they were until Kate came for them if he didn't.

"Wyatt," he teased softly, rolling the truck back and forth. "Or James? James, you're the adventurous one. Come on and play with me. I've got a truck, and here's a dump truck, oh, and I think this is a green tractor."

It James who cautiously slid one foot off the mattress, staring at that truck as Castle rolled it across the carpet. James moved in increments, as if testing his boundaries, and so Castle pushed the truck towards him, watching as it ran straight and bumped James's leg.

Castle laughed. Wyatt gave a little gasping laugh, but his eyes darted back to his brother.

"It's okay, b-" He stopped himself. Boys. Was that the name Black had used for them? Picked up from Kate or Kate from him. The boys. 

He wouldn't use it. James and Wyatt. He would say their names, call them by their secret names, the names Kate had whispered to them at night.

"James. Wyatt," he said quietly. "Come play trucks with me."

He sat still on the floor, surrounded by toys they wouldn't touch with him in the room, and then finally, slowly, James sank down to his hands and knees and crawled forward.

Crawled. Because he was less vulnerable crawling than standing. Lower profile.

Fuck. He wanted to kill his father all over again. 

"Come on, Jay," he said softly. "Come on. I know you want to play. And if you do it, Wyatt will do it."

James's little hand touched the truck Castle had rolled to him. He gave it an experimental drive back and forth, and then his head turned and looked at Wyatt.

That's all it took. Wyatt clambered down off the bed and came running to Castle, crashing into his lap and gathering all of the cars and trucks to himself, pulling them into his own chest with an excited grunt. James came more slowly, still watching, but he settled close and pushed on the truck, back and forth, slowly trusting.

Castle let out a slow breath and wished to hell that Kate could see this. How proud she'd be of them.

Of him. He'd done this.

He could do it for her too.

\-----

Kate curled up sideways on the bed so she could watch the boys through the short hall and across into their bedroom. Castle had found a baby gate so that the door could be open, and their new bed was set up against the far wall, and she watched those boys hungrily.

James kept coming to the gate and hanging on it like he was testing the bars. He would watch her back, and she'd smile and wriggle her fingers at him in a wave. He'd duck his head with a shy smile and drop back down, crawl off to play again. Wyatt was happier, she thought, or easier to distract, and he went from toy to toy where she could see him, disappearing farther into the room only to reappear with a new thing.

A lot of new stuff.

"You bought a lot," she said, shifting her head to look at Castle.

He'd carried his laptop computer into the room and set it up on a TV tray in front of a kitchen chair. The chair had been a new purchase as well, though it seemed used, and he was setting up a program for her, he'd said.

Yay.

"Castle," she insisted.

He reluctantly dragged his eyes to her. "I bought some necessities."

"Toys aren't-"

"Yes, they certainly are," he shot back. "I'm in here with you and not out there trying to keep them entertained. Or in here crawling all over you when you should be resting."

"I like them crawling all over me," she smiled. She did. But maybe in small doses. James's foot always got her in the stomach and that didn't feel pleasant after a while.

"You lie," he said, smiling back.

"Only a little." She glanced through the open doorway again, and James was hanging on the baby gate. "You'll have to be sure James can't crawl over that thing."

"What? No. Can he?" Castle had already shot to his feet and came between her and door, and James jumped back and dropped to the floor as if scolded. 

"You're okay, James," she called across the short hall. "You can look for me."

Castle turned his head and she glanced up; he looked serious.

"What?" she said.

"You're right. He probably could climb it. But let's make it so that he doesn't have to," Castle answered, already heading for the door. He leaned in over the gate and snagged James by the back of his jeans, tugged the boy back to him.

Kate could see the way James hunched, but after a moment in Castle's arms, he relaxed. Probably helped that Castle was carrying James straight for her.

"You said you liked it," Castle teased, dropping James on the mattress. 

"Thank you," she grinned, falling to her back as James crawled on top of her. She hummed into the boy's ear, wrapping her arms around him, surprised by just how good it felt, how already her mood had improved.

James ducked his head down against her, his forehead butting into her chin, but it was okay, didn't hurt. He was just loving on her. She combed her fingers through his hair and hugged him, loving him back. 

"Never get tired of this," she murmured.

"Yeah?"

She glanced to the side of the bed, near her feet, and there was Castle watching them. "Yeah." She had to be careful; she didn't mean to break his heart every time. "Just - holding him for as long as I want."

This time he nodded, very soberly, but she could tell he hurt for her. She didn't want him to hurt. She just wanted him to pick up the boys and bring them to her so she could do this. 

They made her feel better. They always had. Getting to see them every night had been such a relief. Such a rush of - of something. She'd never wanted to label it, think about it, but of course she loved them. How could she not?

No, really, how could she? She had tried not to. She had been desperate not to love them. But she had, she did, she loved them. 

James mewled and nuzzled in close to her, his little arms curled around her where he could reach.

"He really can - can feel me?" Kate whispered. Castle was still watching them, but he nodded and reached out, caught her ankle in a squeeze. She sighed. "Can you feel me?"

"Somewhat," he hedged.

"What does that mean?"

"Touching you makes it - amplifies everything."

"So you're touching me now."

He snatched his hand back.

"No," she said. "I didn't mean stop. I just meant - is that why?"

He unfurled his fingers, staring down at his hand, and then he shrugged.

"Castle, don't not touch me," she said. "Please?"

His hand shot back to her ankle, and then he abandoned the computer entirely and crawled up onto the bed with her. He laid on his stomach, his side pressing against hers, and she realized James was watching him too.

"Touch James," she told him. "Show him."

"Prove myself," he murmured, but he did. He dropped his hand on top of James's head and smoothed his hair away from his eyes. He even leaned in and touched a kiss to the boy's cheek. 

She didn't really kiss them, she realized. She kissed Castle, but she hadn't ever - oh, well, when she'd gotten to them, found them in the room after - after everything - she had kissed their cheeks. Overwhelmed. Just. So overwhelmed.

James laid his head down on her upper chest, and she cupped the back of his skull, rubbing softly at his ear. She glanced towards the doorway and saw Wyatt still at play, busy with some kind of lego set, big blocks in his hands, unconcerned.

One at a time then. 

She lowered her chin and found James's forehead, softly brushed her lips to the sweet smell of his skin. I love you.

James shivered all through his body, clutching her hard.

Castle grunted and flopped to his back, one of his hands still clinging to her forearm; she hadn't felt him grab her. His chest was going up and down like a bellows.

"Castle?"

"I felt that," he rasped. "Oh, God. Fuck, I really felt that."

"Felt what?"

Castle rolled onto his side and laid his hand on James's back, but he he put his forehead down on her bent elbow, still gulping breath. "Him. You. Intense. Hell."

"Good?"

"No fucking wonder they want you, they need you. No one else could possibly compare."

Kate blinked, hating herself for how good that felt, how good, how it eased something in her chest she hadn't realized was so damn tight.

"Ah, shit," he sighed, lifting his head. "Stop, baby. Your heart is missing beats."

"I'm just happy," she whispered.

Castle shifted to lie almost on top of her, his body pressing James between them. "You are?"

She nodded. He leaned in and kissed her, touching her lips with two fingers as if he needed the guidance.

Or she did.

\-----

When Castle dropped James over the gate and back on his feet with his brother, James twisted in his arms and butted his head into Castle’s chin before letting go. Castle took it as Kate’s brand of love, and he caught James’s arm and pulled him back for a kiss.

“Love you too, James.”

When he let go of the boy, he realized exactly what he’d said - and how he’d meant it. He hadn’t realized he was doing it, but it had already happened.

“Wyatt,” he called softly. “Mommy wants to see you too.”

The other boy glanced sideways at him and then came shuffling forward, being goofy with his head half-turned away, sly and showing off.

“What are you doing, Wy?” Castle stepped over the gate and came for the boy, making him giggle and run, completely abandoning the silliness in favor of the chase. “Oh, are you playing? I can play.”

He realized he could, and that was something of a revelation, and he pretended to be slow and unable to catch up, making the boy laugh again. Castle goosed him when he got close, and James circled around behind him, running into his leg and climbing over.

“Oh, no, you guys are ganging up on me. I see how it is.” He reached back and tickled James’s knee, and the boy laughed and fell away. Castle turned to Wyatt and caught him up, growling into the boy’s belly and chomping without really biting.

Wyatt squealed and then shrieked, clapping both hands on Castle’s head and gripping his hair. Castle cuddled him to his chest and kissed his cheeks and his forehead and the little fingers as he made fists and tried to squirm away.

And then Castle knew the instant it was too much, entirely too much, and he felt the stiffening in Wyatt’s body and heard the gasp as his breath caught in his lungs. Immediately Castle pulled the boy away from his face, moving to put him on his feet. But somehow that was worse, he knew it, and Castle reversed direction, taking Wyatt straight to his chest and cradling him.

“Okay, okay. It was too much. I’m sorry. You’re okay.” He carried Wyatt towards the gate, dropping one hand down to James’s head and ruffling his hair, letting him know everything was fine. “We’re going to see Mommy, and you’ll fee much better, safer. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stepped over the gate and glanced back to James, saw the boy watching them but not too concerned. He took comfort in that, hoped it meant Wyatt was already calming down.

When he stepped through the short hall and into his bedroom, Kate was sitting up against the wall, pulse-ox in place, and heart monitor still attached, good girl.

“Hey, brought the littlest one,” Castle said, moving towards the bed. “He’s a little scared, I think.”

“Scared?” she frowned, lifting her arms for him. But Castle came all the way and sat down beside her, lowering Wyatt to the mattress. “Baby, you scared by yourself in there?”

“No,” Castle sighed. “I scared him. Playing too rough.”

Kate’s eyes flickered to him, but she was gathering Wyatt into her lap and rocking him side to side. She buried her mouth against his cheek and nudged into him, and Castle watched a moment, watched until Kate looked at him again.

“He’s fine,” she said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Castle. You don’t have to look like that.”

Castle ducked and swiped his hand down his face. “No, I - yeah.”

She reached out and touched his forearm. “It’s okay. We’re all trying to adjust to - well, normal. Even you.”

He nodded, watching Wyatt cuddle into her, wishing somehow he could do the same.

She squeezed his arm. “Come up here, sit with me. We’ll prove you to Wyatt just like we did to James.”

Castle crawled up to sit right beside her, but she shifted to put her back against his chest. He opened his arm to her and helped support her grip on Wyatt, but she turned her head into him and kissed his cheek. Very softly, almost sweet.

“You don’t have to worry so much,” she murmured. “You keep being you - being so great, so genuinely kind, and they’ll start to trust it. You really are their father.”

He felt his eyes burn but he only touched his forehead into her temple, hanging on to her. He wished it was that easy; he wished that all he had to do was be kind to her and she’d trust him. Trust it. Whatever this was they were doing.

“See? Look, Wyatt already believes,” she murmured. She loosened her arms and the baby struggled to stand in her lap, using his shirt to hang on. But looking at Kate, studying her.

Wanting her.

Don’t we all.

\-----

Kate fell asleep with Wyatt still in her arms, and so Castle hushed him as he stirred and sought her attention, and then carefully gathered him up. “Quiet, quiet, little runt. Come on. Let your mama sleep.”

Wyatt hummed that sound against Castle’s chest and let himself be carried away from her. Castle cupped the back of his head and went back through the hall to the gate. James was lying on the floor with a blanket bunched up under him, his eyes heavy. But when he saw them, he struggled up and go to his feet.

Castle stepped over the gate and dropped Wyatt to the floor, even as James came forward at a run. Castle was stunned when the boy catapulted himself into Castle’s arms, and he stood up straight and held him to his chest, his own heart pounding.

“What’s wrong?” he croaked. “Why are you - clutching at me?” It didn’t feel right, this burst of emotion from James. “You want mommy? Why are you-”

But James was burying his face into Castle’s chest and squirming down hard, wriggling for space and the pressure of Castle’s arms.

With the boy nesting against him, Castle went still, standing dumbfounded just inside the gate. James wanted him. 

“Okay,” he husked, stopping to clear his throat. “Okay. I got you.”

Maybe he’d gotten scared being by himself in a strange room, maybe he’d had trouble sensing his brother that far off. Maybe he had just felt lonely. 

Maybe he was starved for affection and now that he was getting it, unfettered, from his mother, he was searching for it everywhere. 

“I got you,” he repeated. “I won’t let you get hurt. You’re safe here.”

James scrunched up small and Castle surveyed the bedroom, checking to be sure Wyatt was happy playing. He seemed to be, making an elaborate tower with blocks and other toys, paying them not the slightest attention. The bed was still pristine, though the bunny and rag doll had been abandoned, and none of the toys looked played with, unmoved since he’d left with Wyatt. 

Castle squatted down and gathered up one of the soft blankets and he shrouded James in it, heading for the bed. It was low and an awkward fit, but Castle got both of them in it, holding James against his chest. He tugged the rag doll out from under his thigh and offered it to James.

The boy took it, clutching it against him, a shivering sigh passing through his body.

He hadn’t been crying, hadn’t cried out, but Castle could tell he’d been miserable in here.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I thought you guys deserved the chance to be alone with mommy, but I think I made it worse for you. I’ll try not to separate you, okay? If we do have to, it will be for a really short time. I’m sorry, James. I’ll do better.”

He slowly rocked side to side, just as he’d seen Kate do with Wyatt, and James calmed down. Not that he wasn’t calm - he was fine, he looked just fine - but Castle knew just by feeling his tense little body that the poor kid had been unable to cope.

Without his brother here, with Kate here and gone again. Without their usual routines of the day. Castle needed to read up on their charts as well, read the copious notes his father had taken on them and their trials. It wasn’t right that Castle put the medical concerns above the rest - there was real emotional and spiritual trauma here as well.

Wyatt was content to play with blocks, to move trucks around the room, to even - on some level - play pretend. But James didn’t have the capability. His small motor skills were much less advanced than Wyatt’s, and the only thing that had gotten James’s interest was when Castle had run a truck into his leg - and chasing Wyatt.

James was a rougher kid, but he was into gross motor skills that way too. Climbing into Wyatt’s isolette, climbing the gate, wanting to tackle Kate, wanting in on Castle’s game of chase. Which meant none of these hand-eye coordination toys were going to appeal to him; in fact, James might not know how to play with them.

Wyatt had clearly been the one given puzzles and fine motor skills tests. Wyatt had been pushed towards problem solving and manipulation while James had been encouraged in force and movement and confidence in his own body.  
Castle knew it well. He had had those tests and trials; he’d been the kid building an elaborate puzzle or scaling a wall. 

“Hey, I’ll get you a jungle gym. One of those big plastic things you can crawl all over. That sound better, Jay?” He cupped the back of James’s head, felt the boy go limp on his chest in a strange kind of relief. “Yeah? Guess so. Don’t worry, I’ve got you. It might take a little time, but we’ll figure this out.”

James clutched at his shirt with one fist and the rag doll with the other. And he didn’t let go, not even when Wyatt came over to investigate.

Castle ended up with both boys in his arms - but his eyes on his watch, staring at the numbers as her heart rate slowed again.

And again.

And then dropped again.

\-----

Kate woke suddenly, gasping into awareness with her heart racing. She felt hands on her face, little hands, baby hands, and she sucked in a terrible, long breath and found herself staring at Castle.

"Breathe, love," he said sharply. "Breathe."

"Breathing," she promised, dragging in another breath, filling her lungs and then feeling it rush out again. The next inhalation was slow to come and then the rhythm came back to her again and she was fine.

"This isn’t good," Castle said grimly.

She nodded.

"Your heart stopped."

"Sorry."

He pulled one of the boys away from her. "No, don't be sorry. Just - want you informed. Do this together. Not me doing it to you."

She nodded again and reached out to clasp his hand, catching his wrist instead. "I know. I know the difference."

His face got a funny, pinched look, and she realized he looked like he might cry. But he didn't, he wasn't, and he corralled Wyatt to keep him off of her chest. 

"What happened?" she said, sliding an arm out to touch James's little leg. He flopped onto the bed and cozied up to her.

"I had to start an IV," he murmured.

Kate glanced down to her hand, then turned her head and looked at the other. IV. She hadn't even felt it. "What's in it?"

"Saline. I didn't want to push any stimulants if I didn't have to. Get your electrolytes balanced again. Pizza isn't exactly nutritious."

"Oh, but it was so good," she sighed, turning her eyes back to him.

He gave her a tight smile and wrestled Wyatt in his arms. "You okay to talk or do you want to sleep?"

"Mm." She didn't know; she felt heavy, and her heart was struggling through its beats. "Talk to me and I'll listen?"

"Well, okay. We have some decisions to make."

"Mm-hm," she mumbled, her eyes dragging closed. She felt herself go and flared them open once more, curled her fingers around James's leg. "Decisions."

"I can start you back on a modified program," he answered. "It will be a lot of IV fluids and drugs that - it's going to feel a lot like what you were doing in that facility, Kate."

She sighed and watched the boys as they messed with each other. They liked nudging up against each other, liked being close and fighting for space. James was on the mattress with her though, Wyatt in Castle's lap, but they kept reaching out for the other one.

"That's okay," she said finally. "What has to happen, right?"

"I think so. Just to keep from straining your heart."

She nodded, trailing her fingers along James's little calf. "Then I guess we have to do that."

"I'm no dietician, but I do know a lot about nutrition, and I'll be making you some rather intense meals. A lot of foods with high vitamin and mineral content, a lot of greens. Kale, beets, blueberries-"

"Okay," she said, taking another breath as it eased her chest. "Okay, so a better diet. A more spaced out version of weaning me off the elixir. That makes sense."

"A lot of rest." He closed his hand over hers on James's leg. "A lot of rest, Kate. I know you want to get out there and get back to normal life, but sleep is vital."

"I think I'll be doing that even if I don't want to," she sighed. "But, okay. Rest. What else? You look kinda grey."

He sighed softly and skimmed his fingers over her wrist. "You just scared me. And it scared them, and so it was kind of - sad in here."

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I really am. I don't want to scare you."

"Just in a kind of tenuous place right now, I think." Castle scooted down in the bed and slid an arm past James to tuck under her pillow. She put out a hand to balance Wyatt, and then both boys nuzzled down between them. 

"You were scared," she sighed. "But I'll get better. It's just - time. I'll be better."

He moved across the boys to strike his fingers at her cheek. "You're just fine, love. Just keep breathing and stay with me, and it'll be fine."

She wanted to turn on her side and cuddle up with them, but the IV kept her tethered. Instead she let her hand stay draped over James's back and resting on Wyatt's forehead, and she tried to hold Castle's gaze, put some force of will behind it, some certainty.

She could do this. She hadn't come this far to die now.

"You mind if I stay for a while?" he said softly. "Even with the monitor right here with me I just... I'm not sure I could leave."

"You can stay," she murmured. "You can always stay."

\-----

"I want to lie on my side," she said, poking him in the stomach. "Help me."

"Help you?"

"IV will pull," she told him, even though she could hear the whine in her voice. "Help me shift, Castle."

"Okay," he said, rather stunned. But he pushed himself upright on the bed and caught one of the boys before he could roll into the dip Castle's elbow was creating in the mattress.

She waited, trying to be patient, and when Castle had secured the kid, he reached over and caught the IV line and untangled it from the bag. He had just duct taped the thing to the wall over her head, but it put the bag in a good place for her to move, if she had a little more leash.

"There, can you turn over?"

She went slowly, shifting first to get her elbow under her and then digging into the mattress to turn on her side. It was a process, and when he moved to help her, she had to fight the instinct to knock his hand away - it would surely topple her, and he wouldn't be moved.

Though he would never be nasty about it either. Like Black, that snarl that used to come over his face and she would feel that sick thrill at having put it there. I don't need your help, you fucking pervert. Because that always got to him, and she-

"Kate?"

She swallowed and nodded, ignored the surge of bile in her throat. She let Castle brace her shoulder and help her turn, and then she was lying on her side with her heart pounding feebly like some small caged bird.

"You okay? Breathe, love."

"I am," she promised, but even as she spoke, the words pushed air back into her lungs. 

She had not, actually, been breathing.

"There you go," he murmured. "You're scaring the shit out of me, you know."

"I can see that," she said, something arch coming into her voice. Arch and crisp. A blade.

He didn't respond to that either, he just smoothed his fingers against her forehead and pushed back her hair. It was dark outside now, full dark, and both boys must have been as worn out as she was because they'd fallen asleep between her and Castle. Emotional trauma.

That's what this was. She was emotionally traumatized. She could feel it like a dark edge inside her, a dark dark chasm. Everything was black.

Black. Everything was Black.

"What's going on in your head?" he whispered. His fingers combed through her hair. "You look sad."

Those were the only words he knew. Sad. Scared. Happy. He had grown up under Black, and yet he didn't have a single bit of emotional trauma. Anger maybe. But nothing else; it just rolled off of him and he smiled again.

He wasn't smiling now.

"Nothing," she said tightly. She snaked her arm around the boy closest to her, and in the darkness with them huddled together like puppies it wasn't until she felt his body solid against her that she knew it was James.

"It's not nothing."

"It's not anything," she muttered. Closed her eyes. Forced him out. Didn't matter now, whatever it had been.

For a long time he didn't ask for more, he just stroked her hair off her face and then combed it at her neck and the back of her skull with his hand so wide and warm at her jaw and her throat, and it was so nice, it was comfort, and she was traumatized, wasn't she?

Damn.

She didn't do much cursing in her own head - and then when it had amused Black to hear her curse him out, she'd cut it quickly - but now it was bubbling up, popping to the surface of her mind like a deep sea diver coming up too fast. Gonna get the bends, all this cursing. All this stuff she didn't know but felt swirling heavily inside her, like oil on the lake's surface.

She opened her eyes. "I'm sorry."

He was only watching her. That sounded creepy but it wasn't even that, it was watching over her, studying to be sure she was okay, waiting on her.

"Don't be sorry," he murmured. "Nothing at all to be sorry for, Kate."

"I feel like I'm going to fall," she whispered.

"Fall where?"

She choked on a desperate kind of laugh, one breath from hysterical, and he looked grim, very grim.

"That was a stupid question," he said. "I'm sorry. You mean - you mean..."

"You have no idea," she said softly, all question in it. He had no idea. He had never come up to the edge of his own personal darkness.

"I don't know if I do," he said, shrugging one shoulder. But he wormed closer on the bed and James sighed in his sleep and shifted into Kate's chest, the cove made of her arm. 

"I mean - I feel like life isn't anything I can do right now."

"Don't say that," he blurted out. He looked panicky. "Don't do that."

"I don't mean kill myself-"

"God-"

"I just mean - this is too much for me. I didn't think it through, what would happen after, and I have no plan, and no money, and my dad is dead, he's gone-"

"Okay," he husked, dragging himself over James and into her. "Okay, I know. But you can. You can do it. It's not too much, not when you have me. I'll do anything for you."

It was nice; even empty rash promises buoyed her a moment, pushed her upright so that she wasn't quite so close to falling. She reached up and caught his wrist and pulled his fingers out of her hair, clasping hands with him.

"I'm serious," he told her, frowning at her in the darkness. "I'm not leaving, not going anywhere. I am not going to leave you."

"I'm sure you think-"

"Kate Beckett. Don't you dare."

She gave a helpless shrug, but her heart had slowed out into a deliberate kind of pace. "You have a job, and you'll have missions to do, and Colin needs your help. And I'm sure there's something more to Alex and Ben and now that your father is dead, there'll be - there'll be a reckoning-"

"I am doing all of that with you," he growled. He was up now on one elbow, gripping her hand, his other arm under her head and holding her against the boys, holding them all to him. "You're going to have to get used to my fucking brothers because you will be right there with me to deal with - whatever fucking reckoning comes."

"And in a year?" she whispered. The whole world was spinning too fast, her future unspooled and unraveling. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. College, I guess, and figure out how to possibly - live after this. I don't know how to do that. How to make friends or choose classes or live with someone in a dorm when all of this-"

"That's not now," he said roughly. His fingers were tight around hers and he shook her loose in the next instant, gripped her jaw. "Now we figure out now. Tomorrow is tomorrow. And then when we've had a couple weeks, we lift our heads and we figure out where we are. What we can do. If you want to go back to college, hell, I'm with you. You'd stay with me in the apartment, no need for a dorm unless - well, I guess you could do that but the boys would miss you, fuck, I'd miss you. And then take whatever classes you're interested in, take a light load or heavy, doesn't matter. We'll figure it out."

Stay in the apartment, in his apartment. The boys would miss her. 

She was twenty-two years old; she wasn't a mother. But she also wasn't a co-ed, wasn't a girl in the dorms, wasn't a girl at all.

"Too much for right now," he whispered, a glancing kiss across her lips. He was kissing her again, softly - Rick Castle was kissing her. A spy. The son of John Black. He was kissing her and making her promises and moving her into his apartment and she had no one at all but him anyway.

He was kissing her; he was already in this. She was just too stupid to catch up.

The boys. These two beautiful, funny, clever boys sleeping between them who mewled for her and knew their names and wanted to be close to her. And Castle was their father, biology and test tubes aside, and she was their mother, and even if she was only twenty-two and no college degree and no family or home, this wasn't not real.

She was here, she was out of that facility and she'd killed her demon and brought the boys with her, and she was here.

"Too much," he whispered against her lips. "Don't think about a year from now when we still haven't made it through today."

"What - what about my heart?" she couldn't help asking.

"I've got your heart, love. I've got it. Won't let anything happen to it."

\-----

She was dreaming about him. She had cried and then tumbled into sleep one rung at a time, hitting every single one on her way down. She felt the dream build around her, crazy and impossible but also completely familiar, and she sank into it, letting it have her.

She dreamed about meeting a boy in the cafeteria of the student union and having him buy her a to-go coffee so she could study all night. Dreamed him walking her to her dorm and then coming up to her room with her like he was supposed to. Dreamed opening the door and finding an apartment furnished only with a bed and baby toys, and then he cupped her jaw and kissed her and said, can't studying wait for later? And she had teased the soft skin at his abs and said, no.

And then at her desk, head bent over a calculus book that she didn't understand, couldn't even comprehend, and her exam was tomorrow and she was so fucked, she was so fucked, she turned around and found him sprawled on the bed asleep, he'd fallen asleep waiting on her, and so she closed the textbook and abandoned all the things she had no hope of ever knowing and she crawled into bed with him, over him, and ground herself against him.

She woke him up working her own dirty climax against his hip bone and he grabbed her and dragged her down to his mouth and the kiss was ferocious and intense and went on forever. Went on and on and on until she realized he was inside of her, he was pushing through her resistance and deep inside her and oh, oh God, it was good, it was everything she'd been told not to expect, not the first time, and he was amazing at this, and he was touching her there and she was exploding-

"Kate!"

She jerked awake with the leftover taste of satedness on her tongue.

"Just a nightmare," he rasped. "Just a dream."

Her heart was wild. Her body ached, itched, burned. "No, I - it was good."

"You okay, love?" He whispered endearments against her skin and she felt the clammy flop sweat on his forehead where he touched her. He'd been afraid for her.

"I'm okay," she told him, and laughed, the dream still a fog around her head. "It was a very good dream. About you."

"About - me?"

"You were with me in college," she laughed again, breathless but in a good way. Her chest didn't ache and her heart wasn't struggling - merely misbehaving - and it felt good to revel in those feelings of innocent flirtation and sexual exploration and the push and pull of his body under hers. "We had sex on my bed."

Castle huffed a long breath and cupped her jaw, rubbed hard at her lips with this thumb. "You're incorrigible."

"What a big word," she teased, wriggling closer only to be met by little bodies. "Oh, they're still asleep?"

"Yeah, totally knocked out," he said, though his eyes darted back to her lips, again and again.

"I didn't nurse them again," she murmured, stroking a hand lightly over James's forehead. He didn't even stir. "They're not hungry?"

"Maybe they'll wake up later."

"In the middle of the night," she sighed.

He chuckled and his hand came up behind her head where she was still lying on his arm. "Baby, it's only eight."

"Eight?" she gasped. "I'm so - it feels like it's midnight. Wow."

"The injections used to do that to me and Colin too. We'd be sacked out for four to six hours. Your body is just working through all the shit dumped in it."

"It never really did that before. Not at first. But it was the IV. I'd be in the training room within hours, feeling so strong, and - just so sure of myself. And then, after a while, the IV went through and I would - feel so heavy for a long long time. Just so weighed down. But that was after the boys were born."

"While-" Castle cut himself off and then cleared his throat. "While you were pregnant though, everything was fine?"

"Yeah. I didn't even have morning sickness. Nothing felt wrong at all. In fact, I didn't even know I was pregnant until - well, I'd just had these strange flutters and everything was - um, this is gross, you don't want to-"

"I want to," he said quickly. "I want to know."

She chewed on her lip but kept her eyes on the boys between them. She saw Wyatt down near her knees; his hair had flopped over his eyes. Light brown like his daddy. "It felt thick. All of me. Thickening up. Between my legs and my waist, in my stomach, but deeper, where I knew - I knew it."

He was just watching her. 

"I knew it," she sighed. "I thought I was going to die."

"Being pregnant or - or being forced-"

"God," she croaked, tilted her head back on the pillow. She pressed the back of her hand to an eye and breathed. "All of it. When I was a little girl, my mom took me to mass with her a few times - the holidays - and I remember the priest reading about Our Lady, about Mary the mother of Jesus, and how she probably was a kid, probably not much more than 14 then, immaculate conception, stricken with the Holy Spirit."

"Oh?"

She lowered her hand and looked at him. He had no belief at all, none. He didn't even know what she meant; she could see that. Well, her belief was dust. But the story had stuck. "I remember being four and pretending I was suddenly pregnant and how I'd have to convince my parents to believe me. Desperate to make them believe me. No, Daddy, I didn't even touch a boy-"

"Oh, God."

"Yeah, it's all His fault, isn't it?" she said bitterly. And then even that settled out and disappeared. "It was horrifying to be pregnant without my say, and what was done to Mary wasn't good or right or love. But then - then I held them, I got to hold them after they were born, right after, so they were still slimy and gross and wet on my chest, and I figured it out. How something can wind up good and right and love."

"You got to hold them?" he whispered.

She smiled in the darkness and reached out and found his hand, dragged it against her chest where her collarbones met. "Right here. They were premature - or well, much faster developing than just nine months and I hadn't even known they existed the first four, so really I had two months of pregnancy, but God it felt like years. And then they were early and my water broke - it's gross, that's really nasty, sorry, but it gushed out and made everything soaked and it smelled funny - and I was desperate. I knew immediately - don't let them die, just let them survive this, and at the same time, I knew they would have the best - he would fight tooth and nail for them to live and that was a relief."

"Oh, Kate, sweetheart."

"Before that I might have been scared to death of labor, but when they came early, I was just scared to death they'd die. I did everything they told me to, let everyone and their mother stick their fingers up inside me to check dilation and cervix and fuck all, I don't even know, I just did it. Obedient. I think he was a little disgusted with me."

"Oh, honey."

"It was fast," she sighed. "I barely knew it was happening. I don't think they expected it to be so fast either. Because one moment I was being checked and checked and people were trying to make up their minds about a c-section, and then it was too damn late. I grabbed one of the nurses and yanked her down to my face and I said, it is happening now, get down there and fucking catch him."

Castle choked on a laugh. "You did not."

"She didn't have time to even do that. Another nurse was there - or maybe she was the doctor - I don't know - and they slid right out of me. Well, no, that makes it sound easy. It wasn't easy. It was just breathing hard and a tight fist digging in your guts so that you want to yank the baby out yourself. Well, and I didn't know it would be twins. I just knew a boy, and once I caught the heartbeat because the monitor had been left turned up, and it made me cry."

"Oh, Kate. Oh, God-"

"It's okay," she said, dismissing him. But she curled her fingers around his and pressed his palm into her chest. "Just the good parts, Castle. I worked for those boys, and James came first, or that's what they said, and he looked cleaned up unlike Wyatt, who was the surprise to me, but his name popped into my head the moment I saw him all screwed up face and purple-red skin and ugly as hell. Wyatt."

"Wyatt," he echoed softly. "And James came first."

"And they were so tiny," she sighed, closing her eyes. She could almost feel them now. "My hand covered their little skulls. Their bodies were not even the length of my forearm. I just held them against me, them curled up tight on my chest, curled so tightly, wanting to be back where it was warm and close and they were touching each other."

"They like that," he whispered. "Touching each other."

"Maybe so," she murmured. She didn't know. She had only held them separately, one at a time brought to her. Pumping breastmilk like a cow and then cradling one little sickly body at a time. "I could tell them apart. But I knew they couldn't always. They tried to switch up the feeding schedule, one first one day, one first the next. So I knew when they hadn't known."

"It's just - it horrifies me."

"Just the good parts, Rick," she reminded him. "That's not horrifying."

"And you loved them," he said, nudging his face closer on her pillow. So close she could kiss him. "You loved them even if - even though-"

"I do," she sighed. "I think it'll kill me to give them up."

"You're not giving them up," he whispered. "Even if you can't - can't do it, Kate, I will. I can do it. Or I can learn. I'd take them and you'd be with me anyway and then you won't be giving them up."

And she believed him. The dream had done that for her, made it so that she actually believed him.

\-----


	11. Chapter 11

Castle stroked her hair back from her forehead, so close that he could see the glints of gold in her eyes. The darkness was intimate, and the boys were down between their legs, Wyatt behind his calves while James was tangled near Kate’s knee, so that Castle and Kate were face to face, talking in the low light coming in from the hall.

“And what then?” he murmured.

“Well, James,” she whispered, and then smiled, remembering. “Oh, he’s quiet but he knows what he wants. I’d have to put him up against my shoulder. His fingers would tease in my hair like this.” Kate reached out and laid her hand at his neck, twirling at the short hair so that he felt every touch of her, feather-light and erotic.

“Twirl your hair,” he said softly. “Feels good.”

“Felt pretty good to me too,” she said, nudging closer on the pillow. Her fingers still played at his neck. “He does it every night, for just a moment before I have to let him go.”

“Did,” Castle reminded her. In the past. “Did, but now you don’t have to let him go.”

She chuffed and tweaked his ear. “They’re not sleeping with us for the rest of their lives.”

Castle smiled back, tried not to let the thrill show on his face (us and the rest of their lives and sleeping); he just wriggled his head so that he dislodged her grip on his ear. “But at least you don’t have to now. No one standing over you ready to take him away.”

Her smile fell.

He cupped the side of her face, tried to backtrack. “And Wyatt? Tell me what he did when you got them back.”

“Wyatt wants - wanted - to be held like a little baby. He’s such a-” She cut off and blinked hard, something swimming in her eyes that made him suddenly realize, he’s such a mama’s boy.

“He is,” Castle insisted. “I could tell. He wants to lay all over you. But you would nurse them at night and then what?”

“Standing up,” she said, a little toneless. Retreating. And he didn’t blame her. She must have had this litany in her head, keeping track of all the ways she’d been wronged, making a list of each time she couldn’t do what she knew was right for them. For herself.

“Standing up to nurse,” he prompted. “Couldn’t rock them.”

“No,” she sighed. “But we figured out our own - we worked around it. James up against my chest and Wyatt snuggling in like a baby. I fought for them and they fought for me. In it together.”

He stroked her cheek with a thumb and watched her eyes burn, a brown so vivid that it was fire, iridescent as rainbow in oil, just as fast to flame.

“You fought. You won.” Castle lifted up just enough to kiss the fall of her eyelid. “You got those boys out, so that they don’t have to hide, don’t need a secret life. They get to be normal boys who don’t know any different.”

“What about you?” she said then, her fingers hooking around his wrist. She turned her head to kiss the skin there across his veins. He could feel the rough brush of her lips. “When you were a boy. You had a secret life?”

He sighed and tangled his fingers in her hair. “Yeah. Colin and I both - that was our way to figure it out, to fight. We didn’t even know we were fighting. But something had to give.”

“What about Alex and Ben?”

“They were so much older than me. Or - I don’t know. We’re not the same. Colin is brittle in places I’m not, mainly in his heart, and he was always breaking apart. I was the one he could stand, the only one.”

“Stand? Oh, in his head like that?” she murmured. Her eyes had simmered down to a brilliant swirl of brown. “Why just you?”

He grimaced. “Because I’m blank,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t project, I don’t push my own thoughts out there. I don’t think loudly but more important, my heart’s not a mess. It’s empty.”

She let out a little cry and jerked forward, her hands cradling his face. “No. I don’t believe that.”

He laughed, dry and a little - weirdly - desperate. He caught her hand and kissed her palm, but he knew. “I wouldn’t be able to stick around Colin if I weren’t. Wouldn’t be any good to him at all if I was messy like that.”

“You’re wrong,” she insisted. “What you - no.”

He shrugged. “Well, it’s worked. And until I started listening to Colin and questioning the shit my father was saying, Black always said I was the perfect specimen. I was fucking proud of that, how I’d become the balance of physical and mental. I’d beaten the elixir, that’s what I thought. I was better than the elixir because it had thrashed my brothers. Fucked all of them up. But not me.”

She was staring at him; he figured he ought to tell her now, the whole truth, so that she knew what she was getting into. Knew who was lying beside her in bed tonight.

“I was - gone inside. Numb. Black sent me out and I did the job. I came back and I debriefed and I trained and then I was sent out again. I hunted down Colin whenever he broke, and I was the one to reel him back in, me. Because there was just this - blankness. A machine. That’s what Alex and Ben called me when I was ten. Perfect little robot. And I liked that. I wanted to be that. I was that.”

“Do you hear yourself?” she said softly. Her fingers caressed his cheeks. “Was. Past tense. Maybe you smoothed it all over, maybe you wore a mask over your true self, but you’re not a machine. You’re not blank inside, Castle.”

“But I am-”

“No,” she said, gripping his face harder now. “You - when you opened that door and saw me standing over his dead body, you lowered your gun. Do you remember that? I had just killed your father, and you instantly lowered your guard to me. All of your training, Rick, all of that self-defense and intelligence, gone. That was no machine, that was compassion. And then you took my elbow and said, come with me, I’ll get you where you want to go. And you did, you helped me carry those boys out. But you haven’t armored yourself since then. Not once, Castle. You keep showing me you. I don’t deserve it, but I’ll take it. I’ll take it because I don’t have anything at all anymore and the honor of knowing you, knowing this you that not even your own brothers have seen, that keeps my head up.”

He wasn’t sure he could breathe. Let alone find words to thank her for that, the gratitude that spilled out of him.

All he could do was nudge in close enough to kiss her mouth, soft but urgent, giving her more of that roiling, panicky need that rose up in him. Giving it to her because she wanted it, because it kept her going, because she was the only one who had ever looked at him like a real person.

\-----

"Just tell me stories," she mumbled against his chest. They had made out for hours, or it seemed hours, touching, coming back to each other's mouth for drugging kisses. She had made out before, she had really made out before, but there had always been a purpose to it, a final countdown, and it always required her hand and the boy's deflating relief and then a shamed or embarrassed tucking in once more.

Not Castle. She didn't even try to understand; she had just let herself feel him and his mouth on her and his hands gentle or arousing, depending on what lines he'd thought they were pushing up against. And now exhaustion had a grip on the back of her neck and was shaking her for attention, but Castle held her and there wasn't any deflating, just a persistent, lovely ache and his fingers at the bare skin of her stomach, her ribs, her back.

Playing. Not teasing, just touching her to touch. Like the boys. She sighed and dug her chin into his chest; he jerked and grunted something into the top of her head.

"Tell me stories about you," she insisted. "I might fall asleep."

"Tell you all about myself just to have you fall asleep on me?" he scoffed.

She smiled against his chest and realized she was touching him too. She hadn't been keeping track, but her fingers were tracing circles in the soft, taut skin of his sides. "That's how it's supposed to go. Bedtime stories, Castle. You never had a bedtime story?"

"No."

She shifted her head up to look at him, a wash of bleakness across his face that came over her as well. "I'm sorry. Forget I said that. Just - tell me a story about you. And I'll listen as long as I can stay awake."

"So a bedtime story is something you tell at night in the bed to put people to sleep? So it should be boring. And dry. And-"

"No," she laughed, squirming up a little. She realized she had pushed off against James - both boys had migrated to the foot of the bed - and she sat up to make sure she hadn't woken either of them. 

Still asleep, a heavy sleep. They had all had a strange day, a new day, and it was no wonder they slept so hard. 

Kate wormed her way higher, keeping her feet away from the boys, and then she laid down again on Castle's chest, curled up at his side. It was strange to sleep in a bed with another person, but his body radiated heat like a low-grade fever, and she'd been cold for three years. 

"Bedtime stories are supposed to be fun," she told him. "Fairy tales. Like Disney movies - those are all bedtime stories. Or Aesop's fables."

"Oh. Okay, I know some of that stuff."

"You’ve seen a Disney movie?" she said, doubting it.

"Um. No. But someone once said the Little Mermaid was in Copenhagen and I saw it - a statue in the bay - and then I researched it and read a lot of stuff. So I could tell you-"

"Not the Little Mermaid," she chuckled, sliding her fingers up under the hem of his shirt. She wrapped her arm around him, the bare skin of his torso against the inside of her arm, and she hugged herself against him. "A story about you. A true story."

"Well. I could tell you why I was in Copenhagen."

"Perfect," she hummed, sliding her knee over his hip. It felt so good to be wrapped around him. His body heat soaked right into her, made her drowsy and boneless. Like laughing gas at the dentist. She'd had that once, for a cavity, and it had melted all her tension.

That was him now. Laughing gas.

"So, there was this one time I went to Copenhagen."

She did laugh then, pinching his skin at his ribs in retaliation for that, and he chuckled back himself, catching her hand and pressing her palm flat to his side. 

"Hell, woman, I'm trying to tell a story here. Settle down."

She squirmed in close again, nestled her head against his chest, up close to his neck in that perfect hollow that made her body lay half on top of him. She probably shouldn't; it was probably a bad idea to twine herself around him. But he was drawing his arm up to hold her there; he seemed to like it too.

"Go ahead," she told him imperiously. "I'm ready now."

His other hand came down and hooked behind her knee, squeezed. "Finally. Well, this one time I went to Copenhagen, I was there to disrupt the distribution center of an international arms dealer."

"Ooh, fun."

"Shut up," he muttered, squeezing her knee again. "Comments from the peanut gallery. So I rent a hotel room on the quay, a nice enough place, and I get ready. Dress in layers, corduroy pants, two sweaters, down coat, skull cap - all to hide the automatic rifle strapped to my back."

"Hot."

He laughed and his fingers trailed up her spine to bury in the hair at her nape. "You're very kind."

"Um, no, I'm very visual," she murmured, scraping her teeth lightly at his throat. She felt him jerk and the throb of his cock just under her knee, and she really liked that.

"Well," he said, clearing his throat. Shifting her knee slightly. "I packed a kit and headed down the wharf."

"What's a kit?"

"Hm, take a backpack - usually small - like tourist's might have. Black. Put in a first aid selection, usually some Quik Clot or WoundSeal with the work I'm doing, for GSWs, you know. Burn ointment. Stuff to get me back to a rendezvous until I can get a shot."

"A shot. Oh, of elixir?" Kate lifted her head and glanced at him, intrigued now. This stuff that had been and still was being poured through her body. This stuff that had made the boys so advanced. Made her feel dead. 

"Elixir," he nodded. "Elixir of life." The way he said it made it sound like he was quoting someone. Black, no doubt. He rubbed a hand down his face and then caught the back of her knee once more. "First aid selection, rope, charges, fire starter, sat phone."

She let out a breath and laid her head back down again. Elixir. They'd have to talk about that, about how it worked exactly, why byproducts made her dragged down, why they did the opposite for him - saved his life. And the boys. What did it do to them?

"I went down the wharf to a stone house with a wide dock. They were already loading their cargo out of the warehouse section of the old stone house - three stories, it was massive - and then by crane into ships. There were three in the bay, waiting to be loaded up."

"Someone got tipped off you were coming," she murmured.

Castle tensed. "Yes. Actually. That's - exactly what happened. How'd you know that?"

"They're rushing out product. It's obvious."

"Hmm." His hand gripped her neck and then smoothed. "You're right. But not obvious to everyone. I had to fight to be heard on that score. But anyway, I cased the place for another hour, timing the guards, and then I went inside the stone house and set charges. I got upstairs and was surprised by an incoming security squad. I took them down, set charges in the attic, and then I came back down. Into gunfire."

He gave a bedtime story like a debrief. Rote. Point to point. Like he was giving his report. She was too tired to inject questions into it, to probe for more, but later. 

They had eight weeks and more to work through his stories - and hers - and tonight she could just listen to the warm sound of his voice under her ear.

And feel his fingers comb through her hair at her neck. 

And his lungs expand against her ribs.

And his lips brush the top of her head.

And feel her exhaustion spin her out, and out, and out past thinking at all.

\-----

It wasn’t any good when Kate was asleep. Castle had to forcibly restrain himself from nudging her awake just to see her eyes on him and hear one more story in that low and dangerously evocative voice of hers. 

It wasn’t any good at all when she was asleep.

Because he wasn’t. And he wouldn’t be for a good long while yet. He had loads of nighttime hours piling up in front of him, eons of alone time where all he had for company was his computer and a host of data from a hundred files they’d taken from the facility. And yes, it was necessary work, but he’d work faster and better if she was awake talking to him, touching him, smiling at him.

She smiled so much at him. She had this way of pressing her lips together as if her smile was a secret she was barley allowing him to hear, and he always leaned forward to catch every sound of it, every resonance. And then sometimes what came over her was this slow-moving stretch of her mouth into a smile both genuine and shy, where he’d said something or she had admitted something that she never thought possible or real or acceptable before.

He really loved that smile. It lit him up inside.

And then the grin. She had an infectious grin. She grinned at him and her whole face transformed, and his insides turned out, and he wanted to do things to her and for her and with her so that she was that happy and amused with him all the time. All the time. Kate grinning was an ache between the eyes and a tightness in the chest and a coil of his balls.

It was no good at all to be alone - not now.

Castle watched her for as long as he felt he could get away with, for as long as he could trust himself not to ‘accidentally’ wake her, and then he untangled himself from her body and got out of bed. He checked on the boys still huddled together at the foot, brushed Wyatt’s hair back from his eyes, pulled the little soft blanket up higher on James.

And then he left the room. He had to. He couldn’t moon over her while she slept; it wasn’t productive, but it was also going to eventually lead him to waking her. Just to have her eyes open. And that wasn’t nice.

Or good for her. So Castle put the laptop up on the kitchen counter and stood before it, using his main computer to view files from the facility’s hard drive - Ben had gotten into it before they’d been forced to leave Alex’s place. He had calendar dates on a spreadsheet and he needed to input every last damn thing before he went off half-cocked again, thinking he knew exactly what Kate could take.

Fuck, he’d been a massive idiot there. He could not do that again, just inject her without getting the details.

Okay, heart conditions, heart strain. Had his father not said a word about it? He couldn’t imagine that Black had completely ignored something so big. Had he just not known?

That seemed... scarily negligent. And while his father was - had been - a sick fucker, he had taken very good care of his property. Details. Charts. Graphs. Notes.

K exhibits lethargy at 300 mL. Adjusted down for a 48 hour period to 150 mL. A and C remain unaffected, though A had to be woken for trials at 0800.

C was Cain and A was Abel, Castle had figured out. And K, of course, was Kate, the subject of these notes. But 150 mL was entirely too much, even for a trial, and at 300 mL, no fucking wonder Kate had exhibited lethargy. It was a fucking miracle she hadn’t succumbed, stopped breathing altogether.

But as Castle went through his father’s notes, he detected a faint trace of pride that disgusted him to no end. His father was so fucking proud of his little creation, his piece of Eden he’d been recreating for himself all in his own image. And Kate, Kate, was the one suffering for it.

The more he read, he began to see the pattern - or at least he thought he did. His father had mapped her menstrual cycle in painful and scrupulous detail, peak ovulation times, and then Castle realized that Kate had been given hormone injections to stimulate egg development, to actually change her at the chromosomal level - thus the crazy-high dosages of elixir.

When she’d been ‘prepped’, the first impregnation had been attempted, a shot from a fucking turkey baster between her legs, Kate knocked out solely to keep her in the dark about what had been happening to her. 

Fuck, he felt sick.

Castle stepped away from the laptop, reached over to his desktop computer and thumbed off the monitor so he wouldn’t have to look at it. How intimately his father had been studying her, how he had rearranged her entire body to his liking.

But he was beginning to see the pattern, the rhythm to it. She had been impregnated again - fuck, it was difficult to even think it, and words had always had the power to paint pictures for him, and now he knew her, he had smelled her sex against his nose and he had kissed her lips there, and to think of her open and exposed and handled by who knew how many...

Knocked up, and she had said four weeks along, and he knew now, based on his calculations and his concept of what his father had been doing, he knew that she should have been in a downward swing of the elixir.

So injecting her at all had been a vital mistake - if she were pregnant. However, he might also have saved her life, pumped her full of the very stuff that would heal the damage done to her womb and her body, give her a shorter recovery time. Just what the elixir had been created to do - it would work on her here. He ought to have given it to her in an IV, doling it out over time, but her heart strain, the erratic beats and the weak pulse, he still didn’t have an answer to that.

Except that her body had been put under extreme pressure for the last two and a half years, and according to Black’s notes, the first eight months had been a lot of tweaking. Building up her endurance.

If she were pregnant, he could have even done away with the elixir. Something about the embryonic stage, the division of cells, which required a much more carefully controlled environment. From his father’s notes, Castle had the impression that this second pregnancy might actually have been the third or fourth.

He didn’t think Kate knew that. The others had been too ‘uncontrolled’ an experiment, it seemed, their fragile states pushed too far. Castle didn’t think Black was speculating there; he was reporting from previous experience.

Which meant there had been four other embryos, somewhere in time, two sets of twins who hadn’t even made it long enough for Kate to register their intrusion.

No, he wasn’t telling her that. Not now. Not when she was still sunk so deep because of the abortion. Maybe he’d never tell her. Maybe that wasn’t something she needed to know.

But withhold information from her just like his father had done?

He no longer trusted himself when it came to her. He was too wrapped up, too involved, and his training was warning him alarmingly that his own decisions were suspect.

But he just couldn’t do that to her. Not right now. Maybe not ever. He couldn’t put four more on her conscience. It was bad enough that these last two, that she had the memory and experience of holding James and Wyatt against her chest and feeling her heart broken open for them. Bad enough that the boys asleep in that bed right now had betrayed that sense of her inviolate self, had crashed through all of her carefully constructed defenses so that she was left bare and raw and vulnerable to their merest breath.

And then he realized he was jealous.

He wanted her bare and raw and vulnerable to him. As he felt to her.

\-----

Castle's phone began to ring.

He was jerked painfully from self-loathing and fear and sick disgust, yanked by the heart it seemed, right out into a normal, average evening with one simple ring of the phone.

Castle answered not knowing who was on the other end - blocked number - but certain it couldn't be good.

"Castle," he said roughly, sinking down in the easy chair in his living room, now filled with paper bags of baby clothes and items he'd gotten from Goodwill.

"Richard-Rick," came the voice, broken up with static.

"Ben?" he croaked.

"Pedialyte."

"What?" Castle felt bewildered. His brother was talking in a foreign language Castle had never studied.

"Kate. Two or three bottles of Pedialyte. It's in the baby section, has electrolytes."

"Pede-Pedialyte," Castle echoed, his heart slowing back to normal. "Ben."

"You need to give her at least two a day. At least. Keep her - heart from-"

"Wait. Wait. How do you know about her heart issues?"

Ben was quiet for a moment and then Castle realized Alex was on the other end with him. Alex. His brother who had called the team on him.

"Ben. Tell me everything you can. I have a heart monitor on her, but I need to do something. She needs-"

"Pedialyte."

"Okay," he said slowly, trying to keep himself in control. It never did any good to get angry or rushed with Ben. "Okay, Pedialyte. Two bottles a day. More?"

"At least two."

"Is there a limit?"

"Check her blood levels," Ben added then, as if interrupting even himself. He was being fed information from Alex; Castle knew he was. "Check - oh - check her hemoglobin. You remember that?"

"Yeah," he whispered, scared now. Scared to death. "Really? Hemoglobin has to be-"

"You remember what happened to him."

"I do," he husked. Alex. When he had almost died. Oh God. "I'll check it. Is this - the same?"

"It's - probably so," Ben said. "And - come on, Alex, just talk to him yourself. This is ridiculous."

Castle bowed forward, elbows on his knees, trying to keep breathing. Alex. He had been so bad that time. Two surgeries. Would Kate need heart surgery to repair the damaged heart muscle? 

"Whatever," Ben muttered. And then his voice grew louder. "Look, he's saying the pregnancies might have done it this time. Strained the heart. But she's - shit, I'm not saying that Alex. I don't want to know about her-"

The line was muffled, Castle held his breath.

And then Alex. Accusing him. "Damn it, brother. She needed our help. And you-"

"She needed to be free of that damn place. Regardless."

Stony silence. And then his grudging voice. "Give her the Pedialyte. At least two. Try for two. See how her hemoglobin reacts. Keep on top of it. And just know - the pregnancies, the breastfeeding - that changes things. It changes the whole damn game. I got data sets on her, Richard. There were - probably a total of five. I'm pretty sure five. Each time it failed, there was-"

"Five," he said hollowly.

"Very early," Alex sighed. "Data sets said hemoglobin. Just - keep on top of it. Keep on top of it. Pedialyte."

"Can I call you?" Castle got out, sensing his brother was about to hang up.

"No. No. I will lose everything if you so much as stick your head up. Do not."

"If she dies-"

"It's on your head, you asshole. You took her. You did this."

And then the line went dead.

\-----

Castle stood at the foot of the bed for one heartbeat's indecision, and then he steeled himself and did it anyway. He reached down and scooped Wyatt into his arms, slowly headed across the hall to the boys' room. He stepped over the gate and inside, avoiding toys by instinct since there was no moon tonight, and he made it to the baby bed.

He lowered Wyatt to the mattress carefully, trying not to wake him. He found the boy's bunny, left in the bed, and he pulled it close to his small body, covered him with the blanket. Then he crept back out of the room, stepping over the gate, and headed for James. 

The boy shifted in his arms when Castle lifted him, blanket along for the ride, but he didn't wake. His body was heavy with sleep, sturdier than Wyatt's, but Kate's build - the narrow face and slim shoulders, long limbs. A lot like Kate in the face too, her coloring, her nose. 

Castle's eyes, though. 

He cradled the back of the boy's skull close to his shoulder, trying to prevent him from stirring, and he carried James into their room. When Castle lowered him to the mattress, James woke, bleary-eyed, struggling, but when Castle laid a hand on his head, all he did was curl closer to Wyatt and fall back asleep again.

Castle let out a long breath and left the boy's blanket where it was, crumpled under him, and he palmed both boys' heads, stroking softly down to their necks.

They were his sons. He wasn't going to let anything happen to their mother. "Promise," he murmured quietly, and then he left them to sleep.

He made sure the gate was firmly in place, couldn't be wobbled, and then he moved back into the bedroom where Kate was still sleeping. He knelt on the floor beside the mattress, bracing his elbows beside her to lean in and stroke back her hair. Slowly, slowly, she roused, her eyes opening to him.

"Kate?" he said quietly. "Kate. You awake?"

"Mm, no," she sighed.

He checked the watch on his wrist to be sure, but her heart rate was steady, blood pressure had evened out - low, but not scary. "Kate, I've got to get some supplies. I have to go."

She jerked and caught his arm, fingernails digging into his skin. "Go?" she gasped.

"Grocery store. Diapers." He kissed her cheek, the slope of her arm where she reached out for him. "Some stuff for you. And them. It's okay, love. I'm coming back soon. But I wanted you to know in case you woke and didn't find me."

"Go," she echoed, blinking slowly through the tug of sleep. That shock of adrenaline had jacked up her heart rate, but already he saw it trip and tumble back down, erratic, unhelpful. She sucked in a long breath and laid her head back down on the pillow.

"Not for long," he promised her. "I just want to have everything ready so I don't have to leave you tomorrow."

She shifted a leg under the sheets without meeting resistance. "Boys?"

"I put them in their bed, gate up, just in case. If they wake, they'll come to the gate, right? They can see you, and you can talk to them across the hall."

"Yeah," she said, nodding now, seemingly more with it. Something shifted in her eyes. "Yeah, groceries. Okay."

"Baby, you're gonna be fine," he said, cupping the side of her face.

"I'm not your baby," she muttered, shrugging her shoulder to dislodge him, her mouth pinched. 

He laughed softly and leaned in, kissed that fierce line. "No, guess you're not. But I'm taking applications if you want to be. Seems I’ve already got two over there."

"You're an ass," she said, curling in closer to the bed. "And you woke me up for a grocery run. God, I'm tired."

"And you're cranky when you're tired," he said, still hovering close, completely unwilling to leave. Delaying it. "And beautiful."

She opened her eyes.

"Yeah," he whispered, touching another kiss against her lips. "Think I'm crazy about you, Kate. Way you make me feel. Don't even want to leave without seeing you first. Even if it's to hear you berate me."

She stared at him. The monitor on his wrist was vibrating to let him know her heart had accelerated. Felt the same thrill in his own heart. She looked like she was struggling to speak.

"No," he murmured, releasing his hold on her, combing through her hair. "No, don't worry about it. You don't have to do anything, say anything. Just know I'll be back."

And then he got up from the mattress and left her in the darkness with no moon because he had to get Pedialyte, he had to follow his brothers' instructions, he had to save her life.

She absolutely couldn't die. Already the thought had opened in him like a chasm he didn't know how to traverse.

\-----

Kate couldn't fall back to sleep. 

She had heard him lock the door and the beep of an alarm and, despite herself, it made her feel safe, made her shoulders relax and her body sink into the mattress. Heavenly mattress. The sheets were soft as silk against her body.

Nobody could get in.

God, it was pathetic, but she was too tired to care. His sheets, his bed, his body keeping her warm - and she missed that, the heat of him, missed the way it soaked into her bones. She wasn't cold now, not when the boys and Castle had heated up the space quite nicely, but she felt the chill of air conditioning across her neck and bare arm.

And while the exhaustion was ever present, it wasn't anything she hadn't conquered before.

She just laid in bed and breathed in the familiar-edged darkness, making an effort not to spike her heart rate, pretending his nearness and the crooked grin on his face when he'd said crazy about you didn't matter in the long run.

What did she think she'd been doing, touching him, kissing him, pleasing him, making out in his bed with their hands exploring everywhere, giving him her breast to nurse in the most erotic way possible? God. She had lost her mind. That was the only truth here; she was crazy about him too, but it wasn't sweet and sappy, it was literal insanity.

She'd been pushed too far, she had broken.

Kate rolled to her back and laid there with the IV in the back of her hand and the darkness a malleable comfort before her eyes. She could see his ceiling, the cracks and old moulding around the perimeter, the slant of grey-orange where the outside city painted the wall in a static design of street lamps and bar signs.

She hadn’t had darkness in a long, long time. The lights were always on; he hadn’t wanted her to know, and her circadian rhythm was off, and after she’d killed those guards, the darkness hid her too well.

Hid how feral, how rabid, how dangerous she could be.

But she didn't feel broken when she was crazy with him. She didn't feel pushed too far. She felt safe, like hearing him lock the door. She felt shielded when before no one had bothered to even tell her what had been going on, protected when before it had been one battering after another and no one to ask whether she could take it. 

She just had taken it.

He left her alone in the darkness with the door locked and alarmed and he’d come back to her like this too, not even hesitate to come back to her. 

She still had the scalpel.

He was still coming back.

She had that taste in the back of her mouth again, signaling pressure, a warning that she was thinking too much, remembering too much. She could feel the shutdown coming on, feel it gathering-

And then suddenly, without warning, she felt the body to body press of Castle on top of her instead.

She sucked in a breath and blinked through the darkness, but he wasn't here at all. He wasn't, and the door was locked and the alarm armed, and the boys still sleeping, and there was no one in the bed with her.

But she still felt him.

The seal of his skin to hers, the cover he provided when he'd been lying on top of her and surrounding her and she had looked up into his eyes and wanted only to pull him down closer and tighter and harder. 

She felt that so distinctly that she had trouble catching her breath. 

His face hovering over her, his rough stubbled jaw grazing her clavicle as he moved down and down, and then his lips on her breast. Phantom feeling, tingling there and making her nipples tighten, and already she felt the milk let down and leak a little, and her heart was picking up and her body was tight and funny feeling and she knew that if she could put him between her legs where he belonged, everything would be just right again.

A braying phone cut into her self-eroticism and she flinched, the sound so close to her head that it seemed, for a moment, to be inside her, a warning klaxon she'd ignored for too long.

But then she turned over on her stomach to look and realized that phone was on the floor, the piece of paper still under it where he'd left his number, and she reached out with her non-IV hand and snagged it. When she glanced at the little viewscreen, it was the same number from the note.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Oh, God." It was Castle; she could hear the relief sagging in his voice. "You're okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm okay, Castle. You just left."

"It's been thirty minutes and I just got to the first 24-hour market I could find, but your heart rate was elevated and skipping beats. I panicked. I - didn't mean to wake you - but you're - really okay?"

She choked on a laugh, mortified, absolutely - but then, at the same time, her heart was swelling in her chest at the real and immediate concern in his voice. "I'm really okay."

"I didn't mean to wake you," he said again, a sigh.

"You didn't," she admitted. And then she pressed her face into the pillow with the phone held close to her ear and it was such a strange sense of deja vu. She'd done this before, talking to a boy on the phone in her bed, cheeks flushed and pride stirring because he wanted to talk to her, he was calling her, he wanted her.

But how different this was. How - eternal it seemed.

"You didn't fall back to sleep?" he asked.

"No, I - was awake."

"You felt that then. Are you-"

"I was thinking about you, Rick," she blurted out, sighing when it all escaped. 

"You were - oh. Like that?"

She laughed again and turned her cheek to the pillow. "Can you talk?"

"Sort of. I'll keep it low. You can talk though."

"I think that would be rather cruel of me, don't you?"

"Rather cruel of-" Castle cut off again and she felt it, how worked up he was, even thirty minutes away. "Kate Beckett. Why I never."

She smiled against the receiver and curled in closely. "You never, my ass."

He laughed hard and bright. "Baby, I never have had your ass, but the moment you want me too, you let me know."

"Oh, God," she gasped, shocked out of all reason and turned on as hell. Oh, God, oh God, he said these things and she knew now how he meant them; she could feel how he meant them. "Were you - before you called. When my heart rate got all funny, were you think about me?"

"Been thinking about you."

"No, specifically. Specifically thinking - um - dirty thoughts."

"Hell, yeah."

She let out a breath. "What. What thoughts."

"I can't exactly say right this second. I'm in line."

She gave a frustrated growl, but he soothed her with a noise in her ear, like gentling a wild animal.

"Okay, okay, love. I was, shall we say, thinking about getting some milk."

"Oh, God," she croaked.

"You asked. And only if you want me to-"

"I was thinking it too," she got out, and now her heart rate was-

"Your heart rate is jumping, sweetheart. That means either you like it too or I scare the shit out of you, and I really hope-"

"No, it's not - I like it too, you know I do. I just didn't expect to - are we linked or something? Because I felt you, felt exactly what you wanted to do to me and your body on top of mine and your face pressed-"

"You gotta stop," he husked.

She stopped, tried to breathe, realized she wasn't calm at all and it was probably a bad idea for whatever was going on in her heart to be doing this right now. "Sorr-"

"Don't be," he said easily. Easily now. Was it that easy for him to subdue the feeling? Had he- "Wait for me to get home, love."

She huffed and closed her eyes. "For that, I ought to say the raunchiest thing I can think of. Sucking your cock into my mouth and-"

"Holy fuck, Kate Beckett." And then she heard a grunt and someone protesting sir? sir? you have to pay for that and his breathing hard on the line and she knew it wasn't easy at all. It was, um, quite hard.

"Are you - did I make you hard?"

"Beckett," he hissed.

"I just want to know. For - for science."

"I think we've had enough of fucking science. I don't need your voice in my ear talking about -shit, woman - no, ma'am, not you, I apologize. My wife has reminded me I have to get the baby his cough medicine... Yeah, yeah, you're right, no one sleeps when mommy and baby don't sleep."

Kate sucked in a hard breath, felt her body trembling under the sheets, and all of that easy arousal drained right out of her.

"Now I'm hiding," he muttered into the phone. "Thanks to you and your siren's song."

She stared at the wall, arms drawn into her chest, phone propped up at her ear. She felt cold. Mommy and baby.

"Things you do to me," Castle went on. "I can't control it. I have never had that problem. I've never even twitched in a grocery store, Beckett. Do you get that? I don't think you do. You say my name and I get a fucking hard-on. You're killing me in every way, my body, my heart, my soul. Fuck. Fuck. I need to get out of here. I need to be home with you right now. What you do to me."

"With great power," she whispered.

"What?" The word sounded strangled. All of his words were strangled. 

She closed her eyes again. "With great power comes great responsibility."

"Oh, hell, yes. That's it. You have great power over me, Kate. Please, baby, please just-"

"Okay," she said quickly. She'd almost said I'm sorry but she wasn't sorry at all. She felt rattled to her core, like someone had picked her up and shaken her and she'd been collecting little pieces in a box inside her heart and now everything had tumbled around, jumbled up.

Different.

This wasn’t how she thought her life would go. But here it was.

She could hear him breathing hard on the other end. "Can I help?" she said slowly.

He laughed. It didn't sound bitter at all, and that somehow surprised her. "No, honey. Not in the middle of the store."

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "When you come back," she said quietly. "Then I can-"

"Oh, love, please don't say it. Please, honey. Just - just let me try to get control of myself."

She found herself smiling in the darkness, the darkest shadow of the room where her face met her pillow, hidden and secret. "All right," she said then. "Hurry home."

"Fuck," he groaned.

"I'm all right," she promised him, trying to change the subject. To actually be of help and not just to tease. "My heart's just fine. You don't have to worry. You've got it right there with you, so you'd know."

"I do," he said quietly. "I have it with me."

That wasn't what she'd meant. 

But the warmth in his voice... the certainty-

\-----

This feeling he had walking into his own building was like nothing he knew or had ever known.

He was coming in the side, of course, and he'd slipped in through the park that abutted the apartment building, bags of stuff shoved into the backpack on his shoulders. All the covert nature of it was the same, exactly the same, but the feeling as he stepped onto the freight elevator was electric.

Well, that there was feeling at all.

He wanted to see her so badly. He hoped she'd fallen back to sleep. And he hoped she hadn't. And he hoped that she would say, come here and let me take care of that because he really was that base and craven, but it was Kate.

He had stopped trying to leash himself, stopped berating his own need for her. In the grocery store with her voice on the phone, he had felt like someone had slid a ring onto his cock without him knowing it, and every time her voice had turned dark and alluring, the ring had bit into the throbbing flesh of his burgeoning erection.

He was in pain over her. He had a mild hard-on even now, but he knew if she so much as looked at him, he was going to come.

Castle could barely keep it together on the elevator ride up. And he knew, somewhere in a dark place he wasn't letting himself look at too closely, that it wasn't his cock that had him on edge.

Or not only his cock.

When he got off the elevator and went quickly through the main hall on his fifth floor apartment - supposedly a walk-up, according to the lobby he never used, but elevator access right here on his hall if the right key was used - he suddenly came to a brutal halt in front of his own door.

Home. With Kate. 

He had a gallon of Pedialyte and a sick fear lodged in his chest, but he had her voice on the phone and the memory of her body against his in that bed.

He disarmed the alarm and opened the door.

Kate was up and in the kitchen, filling a glass with water from the sink. She was giving him one of those shy smiles that stretched across her lips even so, as if she couldn’t help herself, and he found that neither could he.

He dropped the Pedialyte on the counter and headed straight for her. Castle caught her elbow and the wrist of the hand holding the glass, and then he leaned in and kissed her.

Kate moaned deliciously against his lips and slanted her mouth to go deeper, her free arm snaking around his neck and her body coming up on her toes. He felt every slink of that warm skin under the cotton of t-shirt and leggings, and he angled the glass out of her hand and thunked it down on the counter behind her.

“You taste like fresh air,” she whispered into his mouth. He was so stunned by her words that she had the chance to touch her tongue against his and suck at his bottom lip. It knocked the horror out of her statement and brought his hips hard into hers.

He grunted and pressed his fist into her lower back, crushing her against his thick cock. She arched and gasped, popping off his mouth with the writhe of her body-

“No, no,” he choked out. “Don’t - don’t do that. No contractions, baby, stop.”

“I don’t want to stop,” she whined, but she crashed her forehead against his cheek and shuddered. You taste like fresh air.

He petted the back of her head and combed his fingers through her hair, the places where it was so thick that it was still damp. “I love your hair.” Distraction.

“It’s too long,” she muttered.

“Want me to cut it?”

She barked out a laugh and lifted her head. Her eyebrows came up. “Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a steady hand. I mean, I can’t style it or anything, but I can trim it.”

Kate shifted in his arms and reached a hand back to drag the long hank of her hair forward. It came down over her shoulder and touched her waist, and she played her thumb against the ragged ends. 

“It’s too thin here,” she said, almost like she wasn’t even talking to him. “Split ends. And it tangles up so much because I don’t have conditioner.”

“Didn’t have conditioner.”

Her head jerked up, and something black went through her eyes. “Didn’t,” she echoed. “Past tense.”

“Past tense,” he insisted.

She chewed on her bottom lip and let go of her hair, her fingers reaching out slowly to touch his stomach. He felt his whole body react to just that bare sensation through his shirt. She shifted on her feet like she might slip away, and he clutched one of her hips and caught the ends of her hair.

“Tell me,” he said. Whatever it was that moved darkly in her.

“I can’t seem to - seem to believe that it’s done.”

“It’s done,” he said. He was trying to be quiet, but he knew his voice was cracking. It was killing him, this hard-edged doubt in her. Like she might wake at any moment and discover it had all been-

“What if this is just a dream?” she whispered.

“Did you ever dream of this?” he said, spreading an arm across the kitchen. 

She glanced over the apartment, barely looking. “Not - no? But I dreamed of - of being home again.” She shrugged and her eyes came back to his. “Dreamed of killing him. Dreamed of his blood spurting between my fingers.”

“And you made it happen. Dreams do come true, Kate. Become reality.”

She sighed. Unconvinced, apparently.

He shrugged out of his backpack and set it carefully on the counter behind her, using the move as a cover for pressing his hips against hers and pinning her there against the cabinets. “Did you ever have dreams where you did something like this?” 

She opened her mouth in confusion, as if she didn’t know what this was, but Castle was already there, caressing her breast through the thin cotton. Her mouth stayed open in that kind of deer in the headlights look that wasn’t entirely encouraging, but it also incited his lust fairly painfully.

Touching her. Making her look stunned and a little on edge. She couldn’t orgasm, but fuck, they could still have a lot of fun rubbing up against that line.

“Well?” he said, cupping her breast through the shirt. “Did you?”

Mm, her breast had a weight to it, a heft he loved that was due to the milk coming in - he thought. He wondered what her breasts would feel like when the boys were weaned and the milk was gone. Would they be perk little things sitting high on her chest, or would she always have something of a swing to them, nipples always this brown, hard, thickness. Distended by mouths.

“Beckett,” he growled, thumbing that nipple. “You haven’t answered me. Is it because you had this dream a lot? Your breasts in my hands.” A thought came to him and he lifted his head, narrowing his eyes at her. “Or other men? Do you dream about someone else putting his mouth here.”

He tilted forward and hovered his lips above the material of her t-shirt, breathing hotly against the cotton. Her fingers came to clutch at his ears and he could feel her heartbeat pounding now in the insides of her wrists where she pressed against him so hard.

“Kate Beckett, have you dreamed someone other than me-”

“No,” she choked. “No, never. You’re the only one to ever - God, in three years I didn’t even think of anyone, and now all I want is you, you, please-”

He closed his mouth over the material of her shirt and sucked hard. She cried out and surged up into him, and he felt the stain of milk against the shirt. 

And then he remembered the pedialyte in his bag and what he was supposed to be doing here, and even though this was erotic and heavy and needful, it was dangerous. She was arching and tensing, and he was delaying medical attention.

That did it. Castle jerked away from her clothed breast (clothed, you fucking asshole; she’s still wearing her damn shirt so get a grip). She mewled and came back down flat on her feet and opened her eyes.

“You’re supposed to be taking this,” he choked out. He let go of her breasts, trying to avoid looking at the dark wet stain that showed her nipple through the material. He resolutely opened up the backpack on the counter, pulling out bottle after bottle.

“What?” she growled. “What the fuck, Castle. We were in the middle of disproving this is a dream, right?”

He laughed, caught off guard, and he gripped her elbow as he pulled another bottle out of the bag. “Right. But in your dreams, I’m pretty sure I just take you straight to bed and don’t do something quite so unromantic as force-feed you pedialyte.”

“Pedialyte?” she said, glancing down at his stash. He’d gotten a few other things too, things he knew she hadn’t even seen before. He just had to set it up first; he wanted to surprise her with it.

“Pedialyte,” he affirmed. “Alex called. He said you needed to drink two bottles a day at least.”

She curled her nose at the infants’ brand.

“Come on,” he cajoled. “You gotta take this.”

“I don’t want it. I - Castle, no, stop. I barely eat all day and the pizza was heavenly but it’s too much all at once. I can’t.”

“You can. We’ll take it slowly,” he assured her. “Come on. I got enough to last the week.”

“I thought you said you were getting diapers.”

“Yeah, I got those too. They’re in this front pocket. But don’t change the subject, Beckett. You were getting a glass of water when I came in. Drink this instead.”

She sighed. “I just wanted an excuse to be standing when you got home.” She suddenly reached out and skimmed her knuckles over his cock. “For this.”

“Shit,” he gasped, clutching at the edge of the counter.

“Not that bad, is it?”

“It’s that bad,” he said, teeth gritted and nostrils flared. “Shit.”

“I meant,” she laughed, “my hand.”

“Oh, your hand is a natural at this.” He closed his eyes and struggled with his self-control. He had to get her to drink the damn bottles, but she seemed intent on fooling around with him. She wanted to-

Oh.

That.

“No more of this until you start drinking,” he said, snagging her by the wrist. She lifted an eyebrow. How the fuck did she have this much sexual confidence? When he was clear-headed and thinking about it, he knew she’d been celibate for at least these last three years and then before that, he had absolutely no idea - she’d been nineteen, but she teased and seduced like a fucking expert.

No, that sounded crude. She touched him like she knew him, knew exactly what he wanted, and no one had ever touched him with such artless innocence and deliberate guile all at once.

“Beckett, I’m serious,” he said. “You want to touch me? You want my cock in your hand? Fine. But I’m trading my performance for your drinking this shit.”

She sighed and glanced mournfully towards the bottles. “How many?”

“Hey now, that makes it sound like my cock isn’t worth it and I will have you know it’s totally-”

She did laugh then, and her eyes flashed back to his as her smile slipped across her face. “All right, fine. You drive a hard bargain. Get it? Hard.” She smirked and he just rolled his eyes, sliding his arm around her waist.

He kissed her lips softly, coming back for just one more because it felt so good. “I get it, clever girl. Now grab two of those bottles and come with me, love. There are things I’d love for you to do to me.”

\-----

Pedialyte was disgusting. She gagged as it went down and Castle got a really interesting look on his face. If she didn't know better, she'd have said he was aroused. By gagging on Pedialyte like a toddler? No. But his eyes had that sea-flint stare to them, intense and devouring.

"Nice, Castle," she muttered, wiping her mouth off on the back of her hand. "Because choking it down is so erotic."

His face darkened. Like thunder. 

"Oh," she said, sitting up straighter. Choking on it. "I could do that."

"Fuck," he grunted and jerked off the bed. Stalked the length of the room, pacing. "Just - drink that." He waved a hand at her, not looking, and she laughed but returned the cup to her lips.

She was supposed to drink the whole glass, but she had to do it slowly. Her stomach had most definitely shrunk within the last few years, and the majority of her vitamins and minerals had come from the elixir - not from eating. Too many hunger strikes for them to trust her with that. So even a glass of Pedialyte was stretching her capacity.

"I'm done," she said.

He turned back around, spinning fast, eager, and she really loved that. "No, you're not. I can see it from here."

"All I can take right now," she told him. And when he frowned and opened his mouth to chastise her, "Don't be a bully."

Castle shut up.

"Come back over here."

"I'm afraid," he said.

That startled a laugh out of her, and he gave her a sheepish look in return. She put the glass on the floor beside the mattress, and patted the bed. "I'll be gentle."

He chuckled himself and came forward, but she held out her hand to stop him. He gave her a nervous look.

"Strip," she said.

Castle lifted an eyebrow.

"Clothes off," she told him. "And I'll finish the glass."

"While I strip," he compromised.

She narrowed her eyes, but even just standing there, his body was too alluring to resist. "Okay, fine." Kate plucked the glass from the floor again and raised it in salute, even as Castle grabbed the hem of his shirt and stripped it off over his head.

She gulped down the pedialyte and stared at him.

His hands went for the button of his pants, and even though she knew what he looked like, she realized she'd never seen it like this before. He had been up close - and personal - in the shower - and she had felt him through the material of his pants, but she hadn't seen him at a distance in all that golden-skinned glory. 

He was rough-edged and raw, the sinews of his forearms standing out as he bent his wrist to pull down his zipper. And then his combat fatigues dropped and he was toeing out of his boots as well, ripping them off without unlacing them. 

"Impressive move," she said, letting her grin show.

He laughed and picked up a boot, tossed it at her. She gasped and had to catch it, flinching when it struck her fingers. Steel-toed. Heavy. Her arms trembled.

"You freaking out on me?" he said. “Drink your pedialyte.”

She set her jaw and chucked his boot back at him - at his head. He laughed as he caught it, easily, the bastard, and he dropped it back to the floor. She drank.

"Good," he told her, and then his hands went to his boxer briefs. Tight black material that encased his thighs and made them bulge. He had some damn powerful thighs, and his thumbs ran under the elastic waistband, back and forth, taunting her.

She liked it; she itched to put her hands down inside, her palms flat to his flanks, curve her fingers over his ass as she pressed her belly to that hardening place at his groin.

"You're in to this," he said gruffly.

She lifted heavy eyes to him. "Yeah."

"Fuck," he croaked, staring at her. 

"Take it off." Kate pulled her feet up onto the bed and downed the last of the damn drink, put the glass away. "Now, Castle."

When she came up on her knees on the bed, Castle walked towards her, predatory, and she couldn't help reaching out to do the work herself. His hands fell away, and she could already see, sense, the bulge of his erection through the material of his briefs. She framed his hips, right at her face, right before her eyes, and Castle reached out and slowly dragged his fingers through her hair.

"I'll cut it for you," he murmured.

She couldn't care less right now. She pushed down the elastic over his ass and he hissed, jerking upright as the material chafed his cock. Kate grinned up at him, his hand fisted in her hair, and she started removing his boxer briefs. Slowly.

"Fuck," he whispered. "Fuck. Why are you so damn erotic?"

"Practice," she murmured, lie lie lie. He grunted when her hands came in to the waistband at his hips, and then she tugged it down. It was like magic, the way the disappearing boxers allowed the snake to rise up, charmed for her. "Oh." She took a rapid breath, watching it swell before her very eyes. "I think you're much bigger than you were in the shower."

"I feel like I'm gonna burst," he growled. "Beckett."

Demanding. It was sexy, how he reverted to some kind of military jargon when he wasn't able to concentrate. When she had him at her mercy. Beckett. She liked him using her last name. For some reason it felt intimate.

And suddenly his hands were on hers and hurrying her movement, together pushing his boxers off, down his thighs, dropping. She bit her lip and tried not to grin like crazy, pleased with how fiercely he wanted this, and she couldn't help lifting her gaze to look at his face as he stood before her.

He was all lit up. Alight. Eyes the blue of the sky and glittering, his face open and vulnerable, his hands trembling and his body vibrating, and his cock pulsing a little with every beat of his heart. 

Kate dragged her eyes over his broad chest, the thick thighs, even down to his wide feet and the hairy toes - it made her shiver for some reason - and then she let her gaze linger on his cock. Stiff with need. The nest of curly pubic hair had been matted down by his briefs but now sprang up a little as if eager for her attention.

"Can I touch you how I want?"

Castle grunted, one of his hands twitching. "Yeah."

She lifted a hand and traced her fingernail over the rise of his hipbone, the distinction sharp, bone to muscle. "You have a really amazing body," she said. "It's not too much."

"Not - not too much?"

"Oh, not your cock," she said, grinning up at him, laying her hand flat to his thigh. "Your cock is definitely too much. That's gonna be fun."

"God."

"But your physique. I mean - your biceps are crazy huge, but not disproportionate to your broad shoulders and how wide your chest is."

"My biceps are crazy huge?" he murmured, blinking as he stared down at her.

"I want to say as big as my head but that sounds like an exaggeration."

"And my cock?" he said.

"Crazy huge," she grinned. She really shouldn't laugh. She really - she had learned that lesson - she wouldn't do that to him, but she wanted to laugh. He made her feel like laughing even as her palm burned at his thigh. "Can I even wrap my hand around it?"

"Now you're being melodramatic," he said, narrowing his eyes. But she saw how that struck him too. He liked it, like her talking it up. Literally, it seemed, as his cock pulsed again.

"Well, we'll have to see," she said, shrugging. And without warning him, she did it. Wrapped her right hand around his cock and squeezed.

Castle yelped and his knees gave way; he wound up catching himself on her shoulders and struggling upright again, but his lungs were rasping and she thought he was chanting her name under his breath.

"Wow," she said. He had really liked that. Rough.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fu-"

"I know, me too," she sighed. "But you won't let me."

"Oh, God, I would if I could, Kate Beckett. I'd have you so fast that I'd have to make it up to you."

"So fast you'd... what?" she laughed. But her chest was tight and breathless too.

"The second I sheathed myself in you, I'd come so fast, sweetheart, that you wouldn't get a chance. That's what I mean. So this is probably good practice. We'll have eight weeks of orgasm denial and drive each other crazy when we finally can."

She might have lost all of her breath. And then her heart pumped and blood tingled in her lips and her cheeks and the tips of her breasts, and she released his cock to stroke lightly down his shaft. Up. Up his shaft. "When we finally can," she murmured. "But right now, I don't want to deny anything."

"Eight weeks is-"

He choked off when she leaned forward - his words had died the second she had even gotten close with her mouth, and he let out a long moan when she breathed softly over his cock.

"Kate," he gritted out. And then her name again, quiet and pleading, entirely lost to himself. "Kate, honey, please. Please."

She closed her mouth around his head and sucked.

Castle sloppily thrust, and she did gag - she hadn't meant to - but he groaned and trembled, his hands coming to her head and cradling her face. Too tender, too gentle, like he didn't know his own strength and he was aware of that and trying so very hard not to crush her skull with the force of his need.

She swallowed and let him feel the rise of her tongue and he groaned, hips shimmying as he tried to hold himself back. She circled her tongue around the head of him and pushed down his cock, taking him halfway, as far as she could go. She used her hand to pump the base of him, circling the thickness of him where he was rooted, deep in his groin. She loved the feeling of gripping him, loved the thrust of his hips and the noises he made, the way his fingers dug into her shoulder to keep himself upright.

"Kate," he called.

She hummed as she took him in again, felt the nudge of his cock at the top of her mouth, far back, her gag reflex kicking in. And when she did, her muscles spasmed and Castle cried out and she felt the convulsion first in his thighs and then where her hand gripped him and then between her lips and-

He spurted hot and thick inside her mouth and she choked, jerking off of his cock, swallowing thickly, stunned even as Castle cursed and yanked himself away from her, his come in ropes across the sheets as she swayed there, a hand over her mouth, the scent and taste of him surrounding her.

\-----


	12. Chapter 12

Castle cursed, shaky and wrung out even as his cock still throbbed and pulsed like some kind of demonic possession.

She was kneeling on the bed with her hand over her mouth and he knew he should have paid more fucking attention, but he'd warned her and he had thought she had moaned agreement or go on or something, but that hadn't been at all what he'd planned, jizzing down her throat like a teenager.

Her hand dropped. His cock finally began to wilt, spent, and he saw with a kick to the gut that his come was flung across her shirt, stained her leggings, and smeared across the bed like blood splatter in a damn horror movie. Shit. He stepped forward and grabbed a corner of the bedsheet not totally wrecked and brought it up to clean her off, and she flinched and rocked backwards.

"Sorry," he croaked, dropping the sheet, throat closing up.

She stood up on the mattress, barely a foot higher than standing on her own, but tall enough to reach out and snag his neck, drag him right up against her body. And of course his traitorous cock twitched.

"Where do you think you're going?" she husked. Her eyes were dark pools and she wrapped both arms around his neck and leaned in. Kissed him. 

She tasted dark and bitter and salty - him. She tasted like him. He groaned at the influx of sensation as she stroked her tongue against his, and he had to grab her hips and work her leggings off. Everything. Everything off. Start that damn orgasm denial right now.

Kate grunted when he bit her lip, and her head jerked back, but only to stare at him hotly, intent in her eyes. She licked her lip. "You taste good."

"Fuck."

"I didn't mean to pull away," she said. "Just - surprised me."

"I thought - tried to warn you."

"I'll pay better attention," she hummed, smiling at him, probing her lip with her tongue.

"I'll be a damn sight more careful," he growled.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "No. You won't. Being careful is boring."

"Being careful will keep you from drowning in my come," he muttered.

She laughed, closed her mouth hard, gasped, and laughed again. Like she couldn't help it. "Oh, oh, that's-"

"Disgusting," he sighed.

"No, um, not what I was thinking. Interesting. Besides, you already have all these rules for me, let me do what I want to you." And before he could even agree to disagree, she was kissing him again, rubbing her body against his bare skin, her tongue stroking, easy, like silk.

Amazing. She tasted rich, flavored by his seed down her throat. Fuck, he was losing it; he was already throbbing again and she kept rubbing her breasts against him like they itched.

Castle gripped the hem of her shirt and tugged up, separating their mouths only long enough to get the damn thing off of her. She laughed as her hair spilled around her face and covered her breasts. "Tickles," she said, shaking her head back and forth so that the strands of her hair writhed over her nipples.

"Fuck, you are so hot," he growled, sliding his hands into her hair. He brushed it back and lowered his mouth to her neck, sucked lightly - the way he wanted to suck lower. She hummed and rubbed her hands up and down his back as if gentling him, desensitizing him to her nearness.

Never gonna happen. He would always feel like this with her. 

Castle cupped his hands at her ass, felt the abrasive material of her stiff new underpants, and he dragged her closer to him. He was still standing on the carpet while she was on the mattress, and the height difference made a perfect line from his mouth to her breasts.

Castle licked the top slope of her left breast and she shivered, her arm tightening around his neck. He dragged a swooping circle of wet tongue along her areola and Kate mewled, that wonderful sound which told him more more almost there. He knew enough now to redirect his attentions, and he started by lifting his head and pushing her panties down.

Kate opened her eyes, stared at him.

She had the best, most exotic look to her, standing tall like a warrior on his bed, legs wide apart for balance or invitation, and her hair snaking around her torso. Eve in the garden, lusty but innocent in her sexuality. Sensual.

Castle dragged her panties to her knees and she lifted one leg, like a colt, pulled her foot out, and then the cotton scrap slid down her other leg to drop to the mattress.

"You could touch me," she said, breathless sounding. "I won't come. I promise."

"You better not," he growled. The idea of sliding his hand there made his cock pulse, but the image that came to him most fervently was dropping to his knees on the floor and putting his mouth there. "You better not come. If you do that, this stops."

"I won't, I won't," she promised. Her arms were loose at his neck. He rubbed this thumbs over her hipbones and threatened her with a look, but instead of taking her up on it, he dipped his head to her breast.

She cried out when he took her nipple, but it was the throaty cry of satisfaction, relief. He tasted milk immediately and realized she'd been worked up for a while. It filled his mouth in a bitter-dark flavor, like almonds and sweat, and he sucked harder, opening his mouth for more of her breast.

Kate gripped his hair in a fist and one of his ears, her breasts pushing up into his face. He alternated his pull at her nipple with a tease of his fingers at her ass, between her cheeks, wanting to distract her from either sensation.

"Castle," she gasped. "Oh, God. Oh - oh - there."

He pushed his tongue against her nipple so that he could nudge her into his teeth and she keened, jerking into him, stumbling across the mattress. He sucked a last hard tug and switched to her other breast, this one eager and dripping fluid, waiting for him.

Castle pulled at her nipple with his mouth, whiting his lips with her milk, and then licked his tongue around the mess she'd already made. She was humming and rocking her hips in the air, but not arching, and he knew the relief she found in the release of milk was something close enough for now.

He dropped to his knees, coming roughly off her breast, and she clutched at his head.

Her eyes opened druggedly, staring down at him with a wash of adoration.

God, that got to him. A punch in the gut, how much she adored him.

Castle nudged his face in against her groin and blew softly at her curls.

Kate mewled, her legs going weak, and he caught her easily in his arms, anticipating just that. After all, she'd done the same to him. With her body slack and yet so taut against him, he laid her down on the bed and pressed himself against her.

Her thighs tried to part, but Castle reached between them and closed her legs, gripped her knee for a moment so she would get the message. Calm down. 

But Kate growled and attacked his mouth, her head lifting to claim him, and he let her plunder, let her be artless and rough for as long as she needed. It wasn't anything close to clever or seductive, but the sheer intensity of the feeling behind it made something break open in his chest.

How much she felt for him. Him. The son of John Black.

And then he was kissing her the same way back, hard and desperate, angry at being denied her body just as she was angry at being denied. They battled in it, tongues fierce and then sly, teeth catching lips and teeth, harsh grunts when they collided.

He ripped his mouth away from hers, his hips rocking as he shifted off of her. Kate rolled over on top of him, pushing him back down. Her leg fell between his but he gripped her knee and pushed her legs back together, skimming his hand back up over her ass and playing at the base of her coccyx until she was moaning.

Breathless thing, urgent thing, her body undulating.

"Don't you dare come," he growled in her ear. She mewled and he rolled them again, pinning her torso with his own, leaving her lower half neglected. He finished the fierceness of his kiss and then he pulled back, watching her.

Chest heaving, breasts marked red by his teeth and dewed with her milk, her belly rippling with sensation. Her hair was in waves on the pillow, stringy at the ends, but her eyes were fire.

She reached in and closed her hand around his erection, pumping slowly, and Castle thrust into her grasp, breath whistling through his teeth.

"Don't you dare hold back," she said nastily.

He narrowed his eyes and grit his teeth, slapped her hand away from his cock. "I won't. But it doesn't always have to be your hand. Lie on your stomach, Beckett, I want to do something to you."

"You can't, remember? Rules, rules, rules," she snapped. She was on that terrible edge; he'd have to remember this, how fucking feisty she was when she was denied.

"This isn't for you," he said smartly back. "This is for me. Turn over."

She rolled to her stomach and glared at him, cheek pillowed on her arms with her head turned, but all that fire in her eyes jumped like flames. He rolled half on top of her, bracing his elbows in the mattress just under her shoulders and then settling his heavy cock between the cheeks of her ass.

She let out a tight breath.

"Good?" he husked.

"G-good."

"Tell me."

"Arousing as fuck," she moaned, turning to bury her face in her arms. 

"Yeah, baby, that's it," he whispered. With a single rock of his hips, his cock chafed between her ass cheeks. She moaned with it, that good and steady moan, and he did it again, wincing at the feel of her. No lube, fuck, but she was wet as sin; he could feel it where his balls touched her.

"Castle," she moaned.

He slipped a hand down and caressed her ass, dipped between their bodies to slide his fingers to her sex. She groaned and her hips worked into the bed, and he had to pin her with a forearm across her lower back.

"Stay. Fucking. Still."

She did, panting and moaning into her arms, trying to push back with her ass.

"You be good," he said, and then reached down again for more. Her sex was slick as silk, so damn wet that it pooled in his palm as he touched her. "Fuck, you're so ready for me."

She stiffened.

He touched mouth to her shoulder blade in a kiss. "Not now, honey," he murmured. "Never do that to you, love, no matter how badly we both want it. Be easy, easy."

She twitched under him, squirming her hips, but he lightly culled her arousal from her sex and brought it up through her ass cheeks, smearing a path for his cock. She was trembling now, and he tried to make a note of it for later - talk to her, ask, remember how damn young she is, probably never even this - and then he pushed a knee into the mattress and half rose up from her.

He fisted the head of his cock, smearing himself with her, and this time when he laid back down, pressing her into the mattress, she cried out in that deep way, entirely with him.

He thrust his cock in the shallow channel between her cheeks, the way made smoother now though still chafing at his vulnerable skin. He pumped again and she lifted her hips back into him, and then the rhythm was easy, so easy, not even a word needed and she was digging her elbows into the bed to help and the glide of his cock between her ass was making him tremble.

With her torso lifted like that, and his own elbows planted into the mattress, he released his fists and palmed her breasts, massaged and kneaded at her flesh as he thrust. She moaned and rolled her head back, her mouth clashing against his neck and jaw. He buried a kiss down into the tangle of her hair and thumbed her nipples, twisting until the milk came up again, riding his hips down against her ass.

It was harder now to pay attention, harder to focus on listening to her, being aware of her, but he could feel the tautness of her whole body under him and he knew he couldn't let it go on like this. He couldn’t work her up too high, couldn’t make her come.

Castle let himself lose it, rutting hard into her ass and pounding her into the bed until he climaxed in a bright flare of white, yelling her name into her shoulder and burying his face in her hair.

She was trembling beneath him, but she lifted a shaky arm up to wrap around his neck, keeping him there. Her lips were hot, her breathing fast, her heart erratic under her skin.

But she hadn’t come. He hadn’t hurt her. 

\-----

Kate was buzzing. Electric.

Raw.

But when Castle had collapsed on top of her, a spurt of choking panic had clawed up her throat.

In the next heartbeat, he dragged his hands down her arms, laced their fingers together, and then shifted them on their sides to lie with his chest pressed to her back. He drew both their arms around her torso, curving inward as if to shield her breasts, and his knee pulled up between her thighs. She was surrounded.

Protected.

She let out a breath and nudged back into him, and Castle hummed and kissed her neck, kissed the rise of her shoulder, buried his nose in the hair at her nape. He shifted his groin against her ass and she felt the limp weight of his cock and the stickiness that sealed their skins together. 

Even the sheets were damp, but Castle had wrapped her so thoroughly in his embrace that she was barely touching the mattress. Her head was pillowed on his bicep, her back against his chest, her legs tangled with his. He was spooning with her, tight and close, and he kissed her again, this time open-mouthed on her shoulder blade.

He squeezed tightly in his embrace, as if transmitting some kind of message down into her bones. The breath left her, but there was something steadying about the fierceness of his hold, something about the pressure around her that eased the ache, like holding her thumb to a bruise until pain diffused into numbness.

There was a draft of cool air along her flank, at her sweat-drying ribs, and she tugged on his arm to pull him closer. Castle tilted forward, and she squirmed back, and soon he was where she needed him, draped half over her, pressing her into the mattress, warmth seeping through her skin.

He was still kissing her back. Down her spine, barely moving, just touching his lips against her again and again. Hums, sounds in his chest more than anything, but she felt them vibrate through her, echo in her heartbeat.

That need still rode tightly between her legs and cramped at her thighs and fluttered in her stomach. She drew Castle’s arms tighter into her, tighter, and realized she was hooking her knee behind his and digging in.

“Tell me what I can do,” Castle said at her back. His teeth made a harsh bite against the raised wing of her scapula and she grunted, pushing her ass back against him.

“I don’t - know,” she admitted. 

“You need something more,” he said. “Something to help you sleep.” His mouth opened over her shoulder, the muscle of her trapezius, and he bit lightly there and then sucked.

Her breasts throbbed with it and she dragged him tighter, closer. “Hold me harder,” she said finally. Not sure if that-

He crushed her. She wheezed out a breath and closed her eyes, but her right hand squirmed out from under his and reached down, almost without her knowing it. 

She had her fingers at her pubic hair before Castle caught her, but she dragged his fingers now too, dragged him down to her sex.

“Kate.” Her name was a sharp bark at her ear. “Kate, stop-”

“Have to,” she growled. “Not to - just press your fingers hard-” She did it without him, crushing her sex with his hand and her own, everything tangled, the pressure intense and unrelenting and hooking up into the hollow of her pelvic bone. And then she clamped her thighs around their hands.

“Kate, Kate-” he chanted, a moan on his lips.

“Don’t move,” she got out. “Just - grip me.”

He was absolutely still but that deep pressure grinding against her bone, her clit somewhere buzzing between the pinch of his fingers - as if she could force out her need with that brutal grip - did exactly what she needed. The unbearable tension drained out of her, leaving her washed out and dizzy, so much so that her hand went slack on top of his.

“Kate?”

“Wait a second,” she mumbled, turning her head into the mattress to press her eyes against his bicep. She took another long breath, and then her thighs released him.

Castle withdrew his hand immediately, lifting away from her, but it was just fine now; she was good. This was good. She turned her cheek back to his arm and laid there, finding her breath again, and Castle dragged his arm back up to her chest.

“Better?” he murmured.

“Mmm, much,” she sighed. And then Castle’s fingers touched her bottom lip and spread her arousal like gloss before sliding into her mouth.

Kate licked around his two broad fingers, that buzzing sense prickling in her breasts again, but at least low-key and happy now, not torturous as it had been in those moments after he had come.

Castle hooked his fingers in her bottom jaw, pressing against her gums as she stroked her tongue along his knuckles. He growled something obscene in the skin of her neck and then suckled a kiss just below her ear.

She gasped and his fingers left her mouth, trailed wetly down her chest to circle a nipple, lazy more than seductive, and then his arms drew her in again.

His head settled behind hers on the bed, nuzzling in close, his arms and legs entwined with hers so that her whole body was shielded.

“You just let me know,” he murmured. “Good or bad. Anything. There are all kinds of ways to do this.”

She nodded against his arm, then turned halfway to look at him. She let her eyes roam over his face for a moment, realized with part of her brain still functioning that she was soaking him in. That look, the curve of his mouth and fullness of his lower lip, the crease of his eyes and the strong sharp features. The sated contentment that washed over him. 

“Next time,” she said, hesitating over the next time of it all. “I want to see your face when you come against me. Can - will it still work if you maybe just grind into my stomach or maybe my legs pressed together-”

“Fuck,” he grunted, dropping his forehead down to her cheek. His lips ghosted there, a kiss, a prayer. “It will work anyway you want it, love. Next time... yes.” He lifted his head and studied her, tilted in to place a chaste kiss against her mouth. “Next time, honey, we’ll talk a little more, show me what you like. Because I like anything with you. You make everything feel like it’s new.”

She gave him a shaky smile, entirely too relieved for her own pride’s sake, but awash in it anyway. She craned her neck and kissed him, drowsy with the sex of things, and rubbed her lips against his for a moment. “Thank you for being sweet to me, but thank you more for being fierce.”

\-----

She woke when the mattress shifted and felt only the phantom after-image of a body.

"No," she croaked. "Stay." Her pulse thudded. "Don't go."

"I'm not. I won't." Whispered against her shoulder with a brush of lips. His heat at her back once more, enfolding her and she sighed.

"Better," she mumbled, eyes dropping shut.

"Shower when you wake," he was saying. "Leave it till then."

Leave what? But she had already dipped too far down to come back. 

\-----

She was sticky between her thighs. She hadn't quite remembered - or maybe she really had never known - what it felt like when making a man come was so intense and satisfying. All this slick heat between her legs, and how it poured out of her too, she was wet just looking at him, feeling him, having that power over him. 

(Once, Rob had put his hand down her pants and curled his fingers up and there'd been an intense, burning bout of friction as he'd coaxed something like lubricant to well up, but it hadn't done a thing and he'd quit trying and wiped his fingers off on her sheets and then she'd heard the elevator chugging in the building and she'd kicked him out of her bed, her room, her parents' apartment with his dick floppy and sad and her blood irritated.)

The arousal was like thin cream, like silky milk, and it was strangely warm, as if heated in her sex. She shifted and realized she was standing up in the bathroom and the shower was raging and when she turned her head it was her own reflection in the mirror over her sink in her own dorm in California.

She blanched at the image, jerked her chin down to see the mess between her legs. She pulled up the edge of her white t-shirt, found bloodstains on the hem. Wet. Fresh.

Kate stumbled, hitting a knee against the cabinets before she managed to gain her footing. She cupped her sex and dipped her fingers in her folds and brought her hand up.

Blood.

Blood was gushing out of her. Kate cried out, ripping off her t-shirt to press it between her legs - too little, too late - and she jerked towards the shower. She fell trying to lift a foot over the molded plastic tub, hit the bottom of the shower on her knees. The water beat down on her neck and back, soaked her hair so that the strands ran rivulets into her face.

She stared at the water as it ran red down to the drain, feeling it gush out of her, the t-shirt sodden and falling, the dam loosened so that her life poured out of her.

She collapsed in the bottom of the tub, unmoving, the water swirling pink around her head.

\-----

He knew a nightmare when he saw it, but he couldn’t seem to wake her. When she screamed, Castle cupped her shoulders and bodily pulled her out of the bed, made her stand with him on the carpet, shaking her until she seemed to come out of it.

She did, finally, choking on another scream, her arms flailing out, but he had her trapped against his chest, her head pressed down to his shoulder.

When she was truly awake, no longer in the throes of her nightmare, her knees went loose and she slumped her full weight against him. Castle held her, mouth at the top of her head, his heart thundering with the sound of her scream still echoing in the room.

He had never heard such terror from a living person before. The dead screamed like that, but not the living.

And then Kate shivered, a full-body convulsion, and the tears sobbed from her throat.

He knew then that she was with him. He cupped the back of her head. "It's okay, love," he promised. "It's okay, it's a dream, just a dream. You're gonna be fine. Breathe, honey."

She sucked in something ragged and cried again, still trembling against him, and he wouldn't put her back to bed for nothing. No way. Nightmare like that, she'd just go right back to the dream the second her head hit the pillow.

"Let's shower," he told her. "Wake up, wash off the sex. Come with me to the bathroom-"

"No!"

He froze. She was gripping his biceps so tightly that blood had welled up under her fingernails. "No? No. Okay, no shower. We'll stay just like this, just like this, honey."

"I... I'm gonna throw up," she said weakly. And then she tore out of his arms and ran for the bathroom she had just been so adamantly against.

Castle followed, right on her heels, and he managed to catch her hair before it could fall into the bowl. She retched so violently it took her whole body's effort, and then she vomited again - pizza and clear fluid. All that effort for the pedialyte and now it was gone.

Kate was shaking and crying now, her hand held over her mouth and her elbows propped on the toilet seat. She gagged but tried to hold it back, and Castle reached past her to flush the toilet. As the water washed it clean, Kate groaned and slid down to the tile floor, putting her face right against the towel he had for a bath mat.

Castle left her there, moving back to the bedroom and grabbing her glass and while he was there, the blanket where it had fallen to the floor. He came back into the bathroom and draped the blanket around her huddled form, filled the glass with water from the tap. 

He set the glass near her head and he saw her eyes open and track the movement. He brushed the hair out of the sweat on her forehead, and then he straightened up again and went hunting for a washcloth.

He didn't have any.

He did have a dish towel he found in the narrow kitchen, and strangely his stomach flipped at the sight of the leftover pizza. He hustled back to the bathroom and found her retching over the bowl again, her hair in a loose knot over one shoulder. He soaked the dish towel in cool water and brought it to her, sinking down to sit cross-legged and keep watch.

He flushed the toilet when it looked like it was over, and then she gave a childish keen and spilled her body into his lap.

Castle dragged the blanket from the floor and laid it over her again, and he bathed her face in the end of the wet dishtowel, cleaning sweat from her skin. He gave her the clean end, nudging at her lips, and she sucked it into her mouth, swishing the water around before swallowing.

He hadn't quite been expecting that but it worked. Maybe her mom used to comfort her when she was a little girl, maybe that was something mothers did, soak the ends of a washcloth and let the child suck on it until the bad taste was out.

Castle tossed the towel to the sink bowl and then dropped his hands to rest on her head, combing his fingers through her long hair, tugging the blanket higher and tighter around her shoulders.

If she was sick, that was one thing, but he thought it was just the dream, whatever it had been. He didn't ask. He wasn't sure she'd want to talk right now, not when she just needed to get as far from the horror as possible.

Castle brushed her hair with his fingers, gently working through tangles, hoping to ease her mind. After a time, he realized she had fallen back to sleep, small and compact in his lap.

\-----

The sheets had dried stiffly in places, the whole bed was a wreck, so Castle turned around with Kate asleep in his arms and carried her out to the living room. The recliner - which had seen far better days - was the only furniture remotely able to function as a mattress, and when he nestled her into its seat, she stayed tightly curled like a cat.

Castle laid the blanket across her naked body and tucked it in with as much gentleness as he could find, stroking her hair off her forehead. She look so small. So young. So much taken from her.

He went back to the bedroom and stripped the sheets in a violent jerk, something painful and terrible in his chest. He swallowed hard to keep from ripping them in half, destroying things - things she needed because he had nothing at all, this was it, and if he fucking ruined this too-

He could really use a shooting range and a pump-action, take his time and blow holes in things. Big fucking holes.

Castle wadded up the sheets and stood helplessly for a moment. He had no washing machine. He had a service that was CIA-vetted, but it wasn't like he could call them out at three in the morning to pick up semen-stained sheets.

Fucking hell. He didn't have another set.

How hard could it be to wash them? Run water in the sink and put dish soap in there and then - stir it up a little. And then dry them how exactly? 

No fucking clue. It would take ages.

He could just buy new shit. He ought to. He'd taken notice of her sports bra and the stiff cotton of her underwear and he really thought those were things that she would like to buy for herself. 

Honestly, he didn't want to be like his father. If he wanted her to feel she had agency in decisions as large as the elixir, it would need to start in something as small as her shampoo and panties. And he'd get her out of the apartment on the excuse that he needed bath towels and bedsheets.

Okay then. New solution. Washing machine. Where?

Laundromats around here were 24-hours; he knew that from experience. Not an experience in NYC specifically, but a job he'd done in Oslo where he'd made his stakeout from a 24-hour place. He'd come back to his own city and realized he'd seen laundromats around for years now and hadn't taken active notice of them.

He remembered at least three within a ten block radius of his place, and he had to wash these sheets before she slept on them again. For good measure, he ought to wash the shit Colin had bought for her too - as stiff as it was - even if they were going to replace it tomorrow.

She could walk. She could at least walk down to Jacks 99 Cent Store and buy a bunch of stuff. Or maybe Macy's. Nice and big and anonymous. He had a Macy's credit card attributed to a Josh Riley that was still good. The Riley legend also extended to a few other cards that he could use to set up a better place for them - for her - install some damn washing machines.

They had two babies; they were gonna need to be washing shit. So for now - temporary stopgap until they could get the essentials.

Castle left the wadded up sheets on the floor in the corner of the living room and headed into the kitchen to kneel before the stove. He got on his hands and ducked to look beneath the oven door, reached out to pick at the edge of the lower ash-pan cover-plate.

The metal was loose and soon Castle had it pried open, stuck his hand in the narrow clearing between the lower storage door and the linoleum. He felt the heavy duty plastic bundle and he tugged it out, the thick wad coming slowly from where he had wedged it nearly eight months ago.

Eight months ago when he and Colin had begun lighting fires. He'd thought for sure their rebellion would get a response out of their father, incite some brutish and swift punishment, necessitating a fully thought out escape plan, but it had been like nothing had even happened.

Now he had a fat wad of cash, gold certificates, and plastic associated with his Rogers ID.

Castle thumbed the edge of the typical passport, staring down at his own photo. Rogers. It had just felt right, an empty and plain enough name. A boring man, an accountant, no real drive or ambition. Sometimes he had this spurt of pride at how much he'd done to plan for his future escape, and at other times - especially lately with Kate - he was appalled at how much he had let go of.

Just. Let go. He hadn't found his birth mother, but he couldn't be satisfied that he had tried that hard in the first place. Colin had been warning him for ages about their father's psychotic tendencies, but Castle had turned a blind eye and run his missions and ignored the unsettling seeds of truth in Colin's senses. 

And here was the culmination of all he'd 'done' to stop his father's madness. A thick packet of money and ID papers, and a woman traumatized and puking in his bathroom because of the damn fucking awful things his father had done to her - not to mention two boys who didn't know any better, two who carried his DNA.

Castle shook his head and withdrew a couple rolls of cash, shoved the packet back into its plastic sheath, and then pushed the whole thing under the stove facing again, fitting it tightly where the ash pan should have been.

Rogers would be for another day. Maybe a future that was more necessary than ever, a plan that allowed all of them to truly escape.

Freedom.

Just not yet today. Still Agent Richard Castle. Still confined to the man his father had made of him.

He replaced the metal front facing, adjusting it back into its eyehooks, and then he got up off his knees. He was only wearing the boxers he'd dragged on sometime after Kate had fallen asleep, right before the nightmares, and he needed to get dressed and handle the bedding situation.

He would be better tomorrow, better prepared, smarter. Closer to Rogers, further from the head-stuck-in-the-sand idiot he’d let himself become. He needed sheets. She needed new underwear. The boys would be nursed on schedule. They'd have a quick outing just so they could all get some fresh air, and the sunlight would feel amazing. Such a difference after three years caged.

So long as Castle remained vigilant, never again would she lack for anything.

He would call his brother, and together they’d get started on assembling the pieces.

\-----

The steady hum of the washing machine made a kind of ubiquitous counterbalance to the caught-breath anxiety riding high in his throat. He paced the grimy floor of the 24-hour laundromat, counting off his steps by rote - an old trick from training that he stopped the moment he was aware of it.

And started again the second he forgot himself and thought only of Kate.

Kate. 

The spin cycle kicked on.

Kate.

He made another turn of the linoleum floor.

Kate.

The angry chud of the washing machine as it ground its gears.

Kate.

One hundred forty-two steps.

Fuck.

Castle planted his hands on the machine and dug in with his heels, isometric and furious until some of the tension drained out of him. He pushed off and straightened up again and resumed pacing.

At least he’d gotten in touch with Colin, started the process.

Tomorrow.

He'd take Kate out of that fucking tiny apartment and they'd get her real clothes, real things, normal life things. Bedsheets that she could melt into, shirts that fit her and didn't fall off her shoulder, underwear that wasn't stained by his fucking libido.

The washing machine died.

Castle paused, caught another breath, and then he hustled back to it, peering at the controls. Not dead, just done. He opened the lid and the sweet scent of detergent soap and hot water came up to him. A strange and tantalizing combination of scents that arrested him for a moment.

Castle shook it off and began unloading the machine, gathering sheets and t-shirts into his arms - he'd collected the boys' laundry as well - and he strode towards the wall of dryers. These opened out, and he shoved his collection inside, fed quarters into the slots, and started the process.

And then he sank back to a washing machine to wait. Impatient, but forced to be still. To think. To stop merely reacting and start acting. One thing had come clear to him.

The apartment in the city was no place for Kate.

No place for the boys, who needed space to roam around and explore and engage with the real world, with each other, with adults who weren't looking to draw their blood or put them through tests. 

A yard, a playground that didn't require a subway ride or hassling by druggies or homeless. His little corner of Spanish Harlem was doing all right, but the park was no place for babies, and this city was seriously no place for Kate.

But he was getting the idea that Kate would never back down. She'd know it wasn't something she could do, should do, but she'd do it anyway, just to prove herself. She was fearless and that had saved her fucking sanity these past three years, and it was holding her together now, but very soon it was going to fall apart.

She needed someplace private. Secluded enough that walking outside didn't mean getting accosted by strangers or neighbors, but also a place where a short walk or drive might bring her into contact with real life and civilization. 

He was thinking upstate New York. His and Colin’s ‘cabin’ in the woods. He'd taken a similar retreat nearly a decade ago, and it had been a dream - the slow rehab he'd undertaken when he'd nearly lost his hand and had lost a good chunk of his hamstring defending himself. Machetes. Fucking hell. He hadn't seen the last blow coming.

But he had survived and then he had thrived in that wooded, secluded spot. Kate needed something like that. Close enough to get 'home' if she had to have the city around her, her parents' city, but far enough that it was at a nice and hazy remove.

That was it, decided. He'd make preparations tomorrow, disguise the shopping trip as a supply run, and he'd get them ready to go.

He was taking her out of here.

He knew Colin wouldn’t mind.

\-----

Kate woke and shifted, popping a nerve ending in her neck that made her gasp. She froze as the pain swept through her, and then she had to move to work it out. Only to fall off the - what? - onto the floor.

She groaned and rolled to her back, letting her legs uncurl, eyeing the chair standing in the middle of the living room like a dumb beast. 

Why had she been in the chair? When had that happened?

She had a faint impression of darkness and a bitter taste in the back of her mouth. But she struggled upright and got her feet under her, used the chair to pull herself to standing. She swayed for a second, and then swiped the hair out of her eyes, grimacing at the oily feel of it.

Shower at some point. But first food. She was starving. She couldn’t remember what she’d eaten, or when, but there had been that nasty episode with the Pedialyte coming back up on her. 

Ew. Castle had seen that. And held her hair back and flushed the toilet for her. Rather no-nonsense about it.

He was very kind. Despite what he said about himself.

She opened his fridge and found an odd assortment of things: tubs of plain yogurt, a big case of cheese sticks, a bag of yellow apples, packages of mixed greens, and a gallon of milk.

She pulled out a cheese stick and peeled down the wrapper, stuck it in her mouth before she could think too much about it. Cheddar and monterey jack - her dad’s favorite. Her mom had always had pretentious tastes, and they’d teased her about the Brie and Gouda and...

Kate swallowed roughly and shoved aside those thoughts. It had taken a year to stop sinking in that grief, mired in it, and she hated to think about how much the damn training program of Black’s had pulled her out of that darkness. Nothing else to do but fight, condition, train, fight again, but it had worked.

However, she was feeling a little too loose inside to drag on her sneakers and go for a run - she was mildly certain her womb would fall out - even if it would help. It would really help to just have something. She couldn’t even lift those boys.

Kate chomped down on her cheese and finally reached in for a yogurt, aware of how weird it was to be eating whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. It was the middle of the night, almost the morning by now, and she was eating cheese and yogurt and standing in the open door of the fridge and daydreaming.

Kate sighed and closed the door, turned back to the living room to sink into the armchair. She pushed back to pop up the footrest and drew the blanket up over her, pushed the last of the cheese into her mouth. She started to peel back the lid on the yogurt and then paused, stymied.

A spoon.

But she was too comfortable to move. Damn.

Suddenly the alarm beeped and clicked, and Kate froze, staring at the door. Locks started to turn, the deadbolt moved, and Kate’s heart beat doubletime. The door banged open and Castle rushed in, staring down at his watch, backpack slung over one shoulder and stuffed full, bags over his shoulder.

“Castle.”

He jerked to a stop, lowered his wrist, let out a breath. “Ah. Okay. I see.”

She blinked.

“You need a spoon for that?” he said, shrugging off the backpack and bags and sauntering to the kitchen. He opened a drawer, fished out silverware. He held it up and grimaced. “Or a fork at least?”

Kate let go of a laugh and nodded, reaching out for it. Castle came to her and laid the fork in her hand, and she flipped it around and used it regardless of the tines. “Thanks.”

“Yeah. Anything.” He looked so earnest standing before her.

“What you got there?” she said, lifting her foot and pushing on his thigh where the backpack swung against him.

Castle hefted the bag and lowered it again. “Sheets washed.”

“Oh. In the middle of the night?” She kicked at the bag and he caught her ankle with his free hand, thumb riding high up her shin. “It was fine, Castle.”

“It was shaming me,” he said, jiggling her foot before dropping it. He was still looming over her. “I made the bed messy, and then I wore you out-”

“Wore me out?” she laughed, licking yogurt from between the tines. “Dream on, Castle. My exhaustion is elixir-related, not spy-related.”

He grinned and leaned in, kissed her cheek. She turned into him and snagged a better kiss, flashing her tongue into his mouth.

He cupped the back of her head and pulled away a little. “Mm, yogurt.”

“Oh, gross,” she moaned, blushing.

“Not at all,” he husked. His kiss at the corner of her mouth lifted her head and she found herself raising up on her knees to get at him.

Castle caught her around the shoulders and she heard the bag drop to the floor. She worried she was digging her fork into his back, but then she didn’t care at all, kissing him as much as she wanted.

This time, she pulled back, catching her breath again, dropping back hard to the chair with the yogurt tub and the fork clutched to her chest. Castle grinned - somewhat insufferably - and then he scooped up the bag again.

“Let me change the sheets, babe. Then we’ll see about more of that yogurt.”

\-----

“Thought you were tired?” he murmured. Kate shrugged him off her shoulder where he’d curled up at her back, but she laced her fingers with his to keep him close.

“Mm.”

“Why you still awake?” he whispered. His chin nuzzled in against her neck anyway, and then - without warning - he blew a raspberry under her jaw.

Kate yelped and then laughed, wriggling out from under his arm as she hit back at him, catching his shoulder. But with her wrist. “Ow.”

“Never a smart idea to hit a spy hopped up on elixir,” he chuckled. He caught her arm and dragged her back to him and she found herself pressed in tight.

“Why are you so nosy,” she muttered, but she wrapped her arm around him. “Your sheets smell good, by the way. Fresh.”

“So glad you approve,” he said, kissing her eye so that she was forced to close it. He pushed into her lid and then dragged his kiss down to her cheek, nipped at her bone. “But no way in hell am I going back out in the middle of the night to wash them again.”

“I told you I didn’t need-”

“Yes, you do. Don’t argue, Beckett. And if I’m not washing them every night, you know what that means?”  
She pouted, flicked her fingernail over his nipple. “No more fun.”

He snagged her fingers. “Ow. That’s very sensitive to you right now, Beckett. No flicking. And no, not no more fun. Why the hell would I do that?”

She grinned, thumb-warred her way to his nipple again, pushing the pad of her thumb hard against him. He grunted and his arm tightened around her neck, dragging her that much closer.

“No, not gonna deny myself - or you, Kate. But more sheets.”

“More sheets?”

“Sets,” he clarified. He brought the heel of her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. Softly. Very softly. “More than one set of sheets. Like one a night.”

“Oh, fun,” she said, wriggling against him.

Castle choked and caught her knee, and she hadn’t even realized she’d been so close, but she made note of the position. Wriggled some more. 

“Enough fun for now,” he muttered. “Give me a chance to recover.”

“You’re lying,” she said, sighing, dropping her head to the pillow. “You don’t need a second to recover. You’re like Superman. You just think I’m weak and tired and-”

“Not weak at all,” he said, his palm against her ear. He stroked his fingers in her hair (no wonder it was greasy), and he leaned in to kiss her mouth. When he spoke, it hummed against her and down into her chest. “Not weak, just healing, babe. You’re just healing. Plus, I might have the rebound of Superman, but I don’t have the self-control. More than once tonight and I might do something that would only hurt you. And set us back weeks, not to mention make me feel so damn guilty that there’d be no way I’d get it up again.”

She gave a half smile and knocked his hand off of her ear, his fingers out of her hair, took it in her own and curled their clasp up between them. “Okay. I get the picture. So bedsheets?”

“Tomorrow. You’ll come with me? Go shopping.”

She stiffened. “Ou-out.” She shivered and wriggled closer, tugging his hand against her chest. “Out shopping. Of course.”

“Yeah? Sheets and there are other things too. Clothes, you know. And I was thinking I - um - I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?” she croaked. 

“Hey, your heart is racing,” he whispered, his arm curling up around her neck and pulling her into him. Something about being buried in his chest was comforting and she tried to breathe thought it, smelling his skin under her nose.

“I’m okay.”

“It’s not a bad surprise,” he whispered. “A good one. It will be better for all of us.”

“I don’t do so well with surprises,” she got out.

He grunted and she heard something like a laugh. And then he was chuckling - he couldn’t seem to help it - and she smacked his arm for it, gripped the back of his shirt to shift her knee up into-

“Fuck,” he growled. “You’re vicious.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Only a little. You don’t do well with surprises. No fucking wonder, Beckett. Look, we’ll buy sheets and clothes and stuff for the boys-”

“This is a lot of buying...”

“Naw, not really. I got a good line of credit.”

“Castle,” she sighed.

“It’s - um - not like I’ve had anyone or anything to spend money on before.” He looked - kind of sad actually. “Been piling up my whole life. I don’t have anyone who needs me for anything. And I know you’re not - you don’t need me, me least of all, after everything my father did to you, but at least I can-”

“I don’t need you paying off his damn debt,” she growled, pushing back.

“It’s not a debt,” he cried out. He released her hand and swiped a palm down his face instead, shifting away from her to sit up. He hooked his arms around his knees, head bowed.

Kate pulled her legs up until she felt the wall at her back, found herself pushed against it.

She felt sick, all through her body, strange and wavering and sick. She didn’t want pity. If he pitied her, how in the world could she ever be normal again? 

“It’s not a debt,” he sighed, shaking his head. He pressed his hand over his face again. “I’m in love with you.”

Kate froze.

\-----

There was a lot of quiet.

But when Kate scrambled up and he felt the mattress shift with her weight, he let out a slow breath and dropped his arms, turned and put his feet on the floor. He didn’t look at her, couldn’t, and he stood up.

He felt heavy. But yet curiously light. It was a strange feeling. “I’ll - uh - I’ve got some things I can do. I’m not really tired anyway.”

He moved for the door, unwilling to see her face (fuck, just the thought of what she’d look like after that ill-timed declaration made him sick, his guts knotting). 

“You’re gonna leave me?”

He halted, lifted his hand to the doorframe, and then he turned - side-shuffled, really, still not looking at her.

“You say something like that and then you just - leave?”

He swallowed and squeezed his fist.

“You say that to all the girls, Cas-”

“No.” He swiped his hand down his face and finally looked at her. Kate was pressed back against the wall, her face furious. She was insanely angry with him, and he was relieved. Angry he could deal with. Angry was a place to start. “No, I’ve - um - never said that before.”

“Never.”

“In love? No. Preposition makes a world of difference.”

She gritted her teeth and turned her head away.

“Look, I changed the game on you. I understand. It’s not fair. But it’s - happened. Happening to me. So I’m on my own in this, and I respect that. For right now, we’ll keep it strictly-”  
“Don’t be a fucking moron.”

He stopped, glancing at her again; she was glaring at him. He hadn’t heard her curse quite so vehemently like that.

“Why did you even say that?”

He glared back. “Because you seem to think I’m nothing more than paying off a damn debt. That I am at all indebted - whatever my father did, he did it to me, to my brothers, and yeah, yeah, he did a hell of a lot worse to you. He did. But we’re all fucking in this. It’s not a debt. If I hadn’t been in love with you, I’d still want to take care of my fucking sons.”

She bit her lip, and suddenly it wasn’t just Beckett, it was that girl, the young girl who’d been caged for three years, and here he was eviscerating himself before her. Of course she was furious; she had enough to deal with.

He backed up, stepping through the door, out of the room. “I’m sorry. That was - too much. I’m sorry. I only meant to show you - prove to you that you can be sure of me.”

She had her elbows pulled tight against her ribs, nodding. “No, I should - I know you are. I do know you, even if it’s just been a few days. You take care of your responsibilities.” 

Damn. More than responsibilities. But if that was how it had to be done. “Look, if you can, just forget I said it, Kate. It has no bearing on now.”

She frowned into the mattress. “But it - does. We... uh...” 

She was blushing, and then he finally got it. “We’ve had sex - or, well, we’ve done a lot of intimate things, yeah. Fun, as you called it. But don’t worry, Kate. That doesn’t have to stop if you want to still have fun.”

Her face twisted. “But-”

“I’m a big boy,” he said softly. “You won’t be leading me on, sweetheart. I’ve taken liberties, and I probably will keep doing that. But I won’t be reading into it anything you’re not saying.”

“It’s not... that I-” Kate broke off, frowning again, scraped a hand back through her hair, holding it off her face. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know - how to have two sons and be a mom and twenty-two and an - an orphan.”

Castle sank against the doorframe. “Aw, fuck.”

“So I just - I don’t know, Castle. And now you’ve made it really fucking complicated and now it’s-”

“Ruined?” he choked out. It was ruined. He hadn’t been able to keep his damn mouth shut. If he’d just quietly fallen in love with her, he could have taken his time to sweep her off her feet - or well, get her back on her feet - and she’d have felt it too. Known it was true.

He shifted on his feet and turned away, so knotted up it felt like dying.

“Castle.”

God damn it, couldn’t she leave him alone? He was wrecked over her, and she just kept ripping bigger holes in his guts.

But of course he turned, and he looked back at her.

“Just complicated,” she whispered.

He bobbed his head, swallowing back the urge to say all kinds of things, more stupid things, begging. Complicated. And her life didn’t need more complications.

He was a fucking CIA spy, not a father, and for sure as hell not a catch. Not a husband. And not the material for one either. 

Yeah. He should - go. Get out of here. Stop pestering her like a little boy. Right.

“Why do you keep leaving?” she huffed.

Castle grit his teeth and rocked forward to beat his head against the doorframe. “Because I am just...” He growled and shook his head like a dog. So damn in love with you. “Miserable.”

“Well, then get back here. Crawl in with me, Castle. We can at least be miserable together.”

He lifted his head, glanced at her. She couldn’t possibly be serious.

She looked serious. She was already lying back down, her head on the pillow. “We have to go shopping tomorrow, Castle. Don’t make me exhausted before I even leave your apartment.”

She was serious.

Castle came back to the bed, still in only boxers and a t-shirt, and he slipped back under the clean sheets, lying on his back because he didn’t know what to do. What he wanted to do was wrap her up in his body and be so damn grateful she let him anywhere near her, but he had promised he was a big boy.

An adult. 

He ought to fucking remember what that felt like - he had just been one only a few days ago.

And then Kate rolled over into him and laid her head on his shoulder. He was stunned for an instant before he moved to wrap his arm around her, and now it was his heart frantic in his chest.

“Your heart is racing,” she whispered, echoing his statement of earlier. She smoothed her fingers over his shirt.

He captured her hand and pressed her palm to his chest, closing his eyes. 

She didn’t move away, and he couldn’t begin to move either, and after a really long time where Castle mostly chanted self-soothing mantras in his head, Kate had fallen asleep.  
He could finally relax.

Well, at least that hadn’t been a complete disaster.

\-----


	13. Chapter 13

Kate shivered as she stood before the shower door, naked under his gaze. 

It was impossible to forget - any of last night, anything at all of the way he'd looked like a kicked dog, slinking out of the room - or coming back to her, sliding under the sheets and lying there so stiffly, waiting for another kick. Impossible to forget.

She shivered and he reached past her to adjust the water temperature. He was only in his boxers, but those had stayed resolutely on despite her suggestive comments. She didn't know if she should push, but she wanted to push, and he had promised he was going to be an adult about this.

Was she an adult?

The boys would be awake soon and want to be nursed, and Castle would have to help with that too. He'd have to help her every single day for weeks, and so what the hell did he think standing in his boxers and not quite meeting her eye was going to do? Turn back time?

"Get those off," she said finally. "I'm not going to be the only one naked around here."

Castle closed his wet hand in a fist and shifted on his feet like he might be ignoring her.

"Castle," she said slowly, stepping in close. Closer now as his throat bobbed. "Castle, this is what I can do. Don't take this away from me too."

His face sharpened and then fell, almost comical but for the real dejection and remorse limning his eyes. He didn't want to want her, was that it? 

She dipped her fingers into the elastic of his waistband, popped it. He jumped and then shied away from her, but she caught his hip with her other hand. She wouldn't - touch him - if he truly was saying no, but she didn't think he was.

He clearly wanted her. He clearly ached. 

She skimmed her finger against the elastic so that her knuckle touched his abs. They fluttered at her caress.

"Castle," she said quietly. "This doesn't work if we can't - work through it. If you can't touch me without feeling - um, miserable - then we're both going to be pretty damn miserable for weeks. I mean, my whole body is on display for you, pretty much has to be - I don't have a whole lot of choice here-"

"You have choice - have the choice," he choked out, gripping her wrist to stop her. "You say the word and I-"

"The word is that it's a whole lot nicer if being on display is for - for you," she blurted out. All those carefully rehearsed lines she'd come up with this morning when she had quietly eaten another yogurt and downed the bottle of pedialyte to make him feel better. To make him not look so damn wretched. At least the blood test had been good, normal ranges.

"For me," he echoed. Inviting explanations she didn't have.

"This elixir is what has to happen to keep me on track, and the boys have to nurse. Those are facts. I take it as it comes, and I do what has to be done. That is just life and you know it too. Helps that you know it too, you know? It's easier because we both know how some things just have to be done."

"Fuck, that sounds so awful," he muttered, his fingers squeezing around her wrist.

She flipped her hand to catch his as well, squeezing back. "It does, doesn't it? Bleak. But guess what's not bleak?"

He shrugged, a crooked one that meant he knew what she was leading up to, he just didn't quite agree. The fact that she knew that spoke volumes about how deep she was already in this.

"Touching you is not bleak," she said anyway. "And the way you look at me... that's not bleak at all. If you-" She stumbled over love, couldn't quite put that back out there yet, not when he still looked so miserable. "If these feelings that are so complicated make it that way, make it so good, then I don't care. Let's do it. Let's just do this until it damn well breaks."

"It won't break."

She shivered again, goose bumps flaring up her back even as Castle slid his palm around to her spine, coasted up after them, smoothing down the chill.

He stepped into her and now she was surrounded by him, encompassed by his heat and the flare of his body nearly touching hers. Won't break, won't break, I'm in love with you.

She coasted her hand down inside his boxers. He sucked in a harsh breath and gripped her hard, hauling her up against him.

She worked him in her fist, remembering what he liked, how he liked it, the rhythm of it. She touched her mouth to his jaw and licked at the stubble coming up. 

He shuddered.

Kate nipped his earlobe. "Is this better now? Is this enough?"

"More," he croaked, and she didn't know if he wanted more or if he meant it was more than enough.

She found herself ridiculously happy with either.

\-----

Kate undressed him.

Her hands were soft where they weren’t calloused. Her fingertips, the webbing of her thumb - rough spots that abraded his skin. But her palms were pure silk. The dichotomy was intoxicating.

He stood still before her and breathed in the scent of her body so close to his. Musk and the faint tinge of rain. Rich. His thighs pulsed with every heartbeat, thrumming blood through his legs so that he stood like an oak, unmoved, waiting on the touch of her hands to release him.

She skimmed his boxers down and then her fingers trailed at the back of his calves. She pressed into his muscle and he lifted his foot in response; she drew the boxers off. First one foot, and then the other.

He was naked with Kate on her knees before him.

His hand - without conscious thought - shifted to stroke through her hair, combing it away from her face. She tilted her head back and glanced at him, eyes dark pools, face open and trusting, no seduction in her gaze, only want.

Want for him. 

She didn’t have to love him back; he hadn’t expected it. He had only wanted her to trust that he was solid, that he could be depended upon for anything. He had only wanted her to trust that he was true.

That his love was true.

She didn’t have to love him back.

Her palms skated up his thighs and back down again; she didn’t get up off her feet.

The water in the shower beat against the tiles with regular rhythm, mocking the pulse of his heart in his cock. He watched Kate as she watched his erection grow thick, the way her eyes tracked every movement, devoid of guile or calculation.

There was only naked lust. He knew, very suddenly and with great clarity, that she was wet. She got off on this too; she wanted too.

The hot water would run out if he didn’t move. But before he could, Kate took him in her hand and sank her mouth down over his cock.

Castle cursed and lurched forward, catching himself on the corner shower door, gripping her shoulder with his other hand. She was up on her knees and she took him even as he involuntarily thrust; her mouth hollowed and her head went back, but she swallowed more of him than he’d meant her to even have.

“Kate,” he croaked, tightening his fingers on her shoulder.

She sucked on his shaft and withdrew, teased the head of his cock with her tongue. Her hand was stroking his base, skimming his balls, coming back to strangle him.

“Fuck, baby, I-” His knees were trembling. Hell. His knees were trembling and he couldn’t stop the way his hips rocked, eager for more. 

She angled her head and drove her tongue down the underside of his shaft, nipped her teeth at his balls. He bellowed something terrible, no idea, completely out of his mind.

She suckled at his skin before creaming his cock with her saliva, licking his full girth.

“Kate,” he gritted out. “Kate. Shower. In - in the shower, baby. This is - shit - gonna get messy soon.”

She blew lightly against the skin she’d just coated wetly with her mouth, and as his cock bobbed with his pulse, she kissed the head of him.

“Shower, then,” she said, trailing her hands up his sides as she stood before him. Her eyes were swirling green and gold and black, her skin flushed. “But I’m starting right back where I left off.”

“Yeah,” he got out, nodding his head as he tried to find breath. “Please do.”

She put her arms around his waist and stepped into his body so that his cock was trapped between them. And then she took in a deep enough breath that he could feel it, feel her lungs expanding against his cock. His knees dipped with the sensation.

She grinned, saucy and clever and pleased with herself, and she dragged her fingers down the inside of his arm, tripping and playing. Until she found his hand, and she tugged, drawing him with her towards the shower.

Like hell she didn’t love him back.

\-----

He had meant to put her under the water first, but instead he had sunk heavily to the wall, his spine arching as her mouth had closed around him.

She was inexpert and it was erotic as fuck. She just went for it.

His fingers were tangled in her half-wet hair, gripping a knot of it as she bobbed on his cock. She kept swallowing against him, like her mouth was watering and she was trying to keep it down, like she was trying to get the thickness of his cock past her throat.

Fuck. All of her tangled, knotted hair; he loved her hair, and how it felt in his hands, and how her mouth went down on him. Oh, fuck, fuck, her mouth.

She had started out at first using a hand at his base, which stalled him out just enough to enjoy the ride, but then she stopped to brace herself on his thighs.

And it was so much worse.

Her tongue against him, the sudden pauses as she adjusted or found a new angle, the suckling against the sides of his shaft, the little kisses she gave his balls when she needed air. And now she took him deep again, sucking on him like a cherry popsicle, and her throat worked and worked as she bobbed.

He cried out her name, his hand made a fist of her hair, and then he was on the edge just that fast.

He was thrusting; he couldn’t stop. He was jerking his hips back at the last second, trying not to choke her, but he was; he was choking her. He could hear her sucking on him, feel her gag reflex kick in and then be smothered by his own cock.

He gripped her hair tighter and pulled, tugged her off of him.

He had one glimpse of her face, dark sex-drowsy and needful, and then his cock released his load, spraying the far wall of the shower with his orgasm.

Kate laid her cheek against his thigh and fondled his balls as they contracted tight, and he spilled himself out.

\-----

"I just made you come," she whispered, pressing herself against his chest. His skin was heated and the shower beat at her back, warm all over. "I did good."

"Fuck," he groaned, his arm tightening around her shoulders, clumsy for him. "You did very very - hell - like no other experience of my whole damn life."

She grinned and nipped at his jaw, liking the way her teeth rolled his skin so that the bristles were against her tongue. "No other experience?"

"Out of body."

"Out of your mind a little too," she whispered. He had said it again, a chanting litany as she'd swallowed him down love you love you love you and thank goodness her mouth had been full. She was pretty sure he had no idea he'd said it. Pretty sure it had just fallen out of his mouth with the feeling jolting through him.

Somehow it meant more.

"Out of my mind? Probably so," he sighed. His fingers played at her sides, tracing designs in the drops of water. "I didn't mean to - hold you down there. I-"

"You didn't," she said. "It was fun. I've done that like twice before. Never was at all that fun."

"Tw-twice?"

"Mm." She wriggled against him just to feel the pleasant strength of his body pushing back against her. And his cock again. "You're already hard?"

"Wait, you'd only done that twice before me?"

"Want to double it again?" she said, sneaking her hand between them to reach for that thickening length. "I think I know what you like. I’ve been studying-"

"Kate, shit-" He grunted and gripped the back of her neck, a squeeze that drew up her shoulders and kept her flattened against his chest. She had no room to maneuver.

She was trapped.

"Hang on," he whispered. "Give me - a second to catch my breath."

She shivered and turned her face into his neck, the water pounding against her back and making her squirm. She couldn't even release his cock, she was so completely unable to move, and his fingers squeezed tighter at her nape.

She squeezed his cock in retaliation. Castle grunted and his hips bucked into her. His grip on her neck didn't let up, but now she saw more insensible lust crawling across his face than command, and she did it again.

"Kate!"

Oh, yes, much better.

"Kate, baby, please, I can't - control myself - you gotta-"

She scraped her thumb back along his shaft and he reared like an animal, smacking his head against the tile wall. She tried not to laugh, but she felt such a surge of - of fierce and terrible joy in making him so unmade. He groaned and his hips rode up into her hand and his forearm braced her back as his fingers dug bruises in the vulnerable places below her skull.

She fisted him hard, letting the abrasion of her hand through the water work against him. He liked it rough; he really liked it hard. She found herself riding his thigh, writhing against his chest because she was still caught by his body.

She pressed up on her toes and kissed him.

Castle moaned into her mouth.

Erotic and dark, his own need became a taste at the back of her throat. His teeth clashed as she bit his tongue, their kiss as frenzied as his thrusts. She kneaded his cock as she stroked him, squeezed and swiped at the head of him with every pass. He was holding out better this time; she had him up on that impossibly high plateau of need, and she could keep him there longer if she wanted.

She knew all of this because she had learned him, learned by touch and feel and the sharp, taut line of his body's urgency. She was very good with her hands; she was better with her mind.

And she knew by...

She knew the sense of him. By instinct. It might be wishful thinking, might be power of suggestion because she knew they had some kind of elixir-enhanced connection, but she had this - friction. Rubbing against her. Not just his cock in her hand, but his presence in her awareness of the world. His aura rubbing shoulders with hers so that she knew what would happen when she gripped him.

He was chanting her name in their kiss, his desperation so molten and real that it filled her whole body. She knew exactly when and where and how, and she clung wetly to his mouth as she fisted his base and came dragging up his shaft-

Castle exploded in her hand, thrusting madly, his eyes twin howls, locked on her, their foreheads pressed together with sweat and shower.

His thumb dipped into the nerve at her neck and she went boneless against him, felled by his grip as well.

They both sank back against the tile, breathing hard, liquid, hot.

Love you echoed in the beat of the water.

\-----

"I'm good, I'm good," she murmured, lifting her chin as water sluiced down her face. 

Castle was massaging her scalp with his fingers, her body braced by the frame of his. She clutched his biceps anyway, eyes drooping at the feeling of - of being pampered a little - and she let him work the conditioner through her hair.

"Mm, smells good," she sighed.

"We could sit in the bottom of the tub if you're-"

Her eyes snapped open and she pinched the thin skin over his biceps, twisted it hard. "Did I say, mm, I'm tired? No. I said it smelled good, you big bully." 

"Am I a bully?" Such a question, and such pitiful hurt on his face. But she was having trouble singling it out, identifying the reason why-

Oh, he was teasing. He was teasing her, and her furiousness siphoned off, replaced with only a sly amusement. "You are a bully. You act like you’re my big brother-"

"I better not be your brother," he growled, dragging her up against his body so she felt him. His cock thickening for her again.

His fingers cupped her skull, fine pressure points along her bone. It released the last knot of her tension. (Why? She just knew she had felt brittle in her chest, like something had snapped when he'd whined at her and tried to orchestrate her life and she was-)

His mouth crashed over hers in a brutal kiss and she gave it back, climbing his body in her effort to control, dominate, take from him. It flashed over her in an instant, and she shoved him back against the tile, the wicked-sharp scent of pear and cherry conditioner filling her senses and his cock rubbing between her legs as she ground against him.

Castle bucked and she got a grip on his erection, a rough fist that made him shout. Made him surrender. She felt the moment he gave over to her, and though they had just gotten clean, she pressed her hip bones against his and ground his cock between their bodies, furious and fierce and animal.

Castle snagged her mouth with his teeth, thrust his tongue inside. His kiss was searing, steam billowing around her, invading her lungs, filling her up with the solid air of him.

Him. He was everywhere. Everywhere but that one place so many others had been - between her legs. She wanted him there, there, where the force of him would rip out all of those badly sewn stitches and break her open. There would be blood, but it would be cleansing.

She angled her thigh, caught his hip, made a place for him between their bodies.

She was going to do it; she was going to make him-

Castle barked a curse and his back snapped like a bow; she had a moment's slick glide along her sex, the amazing friction of his tease, and then he orgasmed in a bright display of colors and sounds and terrible, urgent power. 

Kate held on to him, hooked around him with her own scrabbling lust, and then as he began to wane and the possession left him, his fingers gentled and stroked down her back, her spine, her ass, her flanks.

"Baby," he whispered at her cheek, "oh, love, you're so good, you're so good. Can’t get enough of you." 

Before she knew what he was doing, herself still trembling with a need dark and black as death, Castle's thumb crushed her clit against her pelvic bone.

Kate went up on her toes, gasping, but the contraction never came. It was a teeth-grinding intensity that couldn't be sustained, couldn’t be borne. She was shoved forward, ever forward, transubstantiation as her body became his body, his release hers, the crushing of her clit demolishing her uncontrollable lust until she sagged.

Castle wrapped his arm around her and held her up, his nose nudging at her ear. "I know you do, I know," he was whispering.

She didn't know what she'd said.

\-----

Once Castle had rinsed the conditioner from her hair and made certain that their skins were washed clean, he shut off the water with his foot.

He had yet to let go of her. How could he? After she had sobbed I need you against his neck. He couldn’t possibly let go of her.

He had broken her tension with force, knowing only that it had to work, crushing her to break the spell, because after he had come, the enormity of their positions had hit him.

She had been that close to climax. He might have set her off when he had gone in to put pressure on her clit like she had shown him last night, but it’d been entirely necessary. She would have come if he hadn’t stopped it. 

Her thigh had been thrown over his hip. He had orgasmed all over her belly, her sex. That close. The close to a natural, easy slide right inside. And then everything would have been ruined.

That close to hurting her. 

So, no. He wasn't letting her go. She was dangerous on her own, dangerous even when he was trying to pay attention, dangerous left to her own devices. She had a mindset that seemed to equate life with pain, and if she wasn't stoically enduring, then she wasn't alive. To live was to be in pain. 

He couldn't possibly let her go.

I need you.

She did. She needed him to show her a better way. Where life wasn’t pain.

He had a new mission.

Castle carried her out of the shower, his arms and legs trembling with three orgasms back to back in the space of not even an hour. He honestly had never tested the limits of his sexual endurance, nor had he ever gone more than once. There’d never been any desire. It had been a job. He didn’t know how long his libido would last, but even now, with her body pressed to his, he could go again if she-

No. He ought to be better than that.

Castle snagged the towel from the bar with a flick of his wrist and he put her on the counter, wrapping her up in the scratchy-stiff edges. It was his last clean towel. 

Her energy seemed drained, and her eyes held that zoned out kind of detachment that scared him. But she rallied after a moment and something flickered to life in her face when he rubbed her hair dry.

"You'll tangle it," she muttered then, batting his hand away. "It's too long. It's driving me crazy."

“It’s pretty long. I guess... it hasn’t been cut in a while.”

“What I wouldn’t give for a pair of scissors,” she mourned, her fingers dragging through the knots.

"I have scissors. I could to cut it for you. Only if you don't mind me hacking-"

"Hack away," she said grimly, setting her shoulders. 

"Really?"

"Did I not just say-"

"Yes, okay," he got out quickly, grateful that she was still sitting rather immobile on the bathroom counter. He wrapped her in the towel and she lifted her arms and tucked in the end at her breasts. He brushed the backs of his fingers against her skin and she gave him this wild grin, predatory.

Castle had thought he had her figured out, her need for the boys she hadn’t been able to show, her fierce will to live. A will to live despite what the elixir should have done to her, what those sterile and impersonal medical trials had done to her. Alive despite the last three years’ worth of trauma. 

But he had no idea, did he?

He had absolutely no idea. Because he kept ignoring the fact (or denying, serious and intense denial) that it had been his own father who had orchestrated all of this. And Castle knew the depths of that man’s inhumanity, he knew how it felt to be fucked with by the master manipulator. 

So whatever had happened between Black and Kate - it had happened for three damn years. Black prepping her for his ultimate goal, humiliating her to keep her down, giving her just enough rope to hang herself, and then coming in as her savior.

His skin chilled, and his cock shriveled.

“Go get your scissors, Castle,” she reminded him. 

He glanced back and saw her picking at her fingernails, watching him with none of that confidence she’d had in the shower. Sloped and narrow shoulders, hesitant and wary eyes, guarded posture. It was back to the woman who had shyly promised him he could watch the boys’ nurse because they were his sons too. The woman who had curled up in that armchair and fallen asleep.

Jekyll and Hyde. 

Funny thing, he liked the wild monster Hyde. She completely tantalized him. He wanted to see that side of her again.

Just not when they were fooling around in the shower for the next eight weeks. Not when he was using every trick in the book to maintain his control and not doing something to hurt her. After that stunt in the shower, fuck. Fuck. He really liked her damaged side. He wanted that twisted and broken and dark version of her to fuck him over hard.

“Scissors,” he told her, nodding his head and leaning in. He only wanted to kiss her, the corner of her eye where she was demure and not looking at him, but she flinched.

He paused.

She had only twitched a few times before him, never quite like this, never this caught-breath and violent jerk backwards.

“Kate,” he murmured. Whatever he’d wanted to say next, it just didn’t come. I love you, I would never hurt you, trust me.

He couldn’t say those things; he knew that now. It hadn’t been a mistake, no, but it had to rest. Give it a rest. Give her a rest too, a chance to find her feet.

Castle completed his kiss and cupped the side of her face, ignoring the way she jerked at the touch. Pretending it didn’t matter. 

He left her on the counter and headed out of the bathroom, through the hall only long enough to check that the boys hadn’t woken yet. Sure enough, they were cuddled together like puppies, so Castle kept going, moving for the kitchen.

He found the scissors in the drawer with all the rest of his tools, and he carried them back quickly, not wanting to leave her long. When he came around the corner, she was half-turned on the counter, studying herself in the mirror.

“Damn beautiful, aren’t you?” he said, sauntering up to her, hoping to engage her sense of pride, that instinctive retaliation. “You’re painfully gorgeous.”

She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Painful?”

“Those cheekbones and the darkness in your eyes. It’s a deadly combination. And then you add in the rest of your body and - damn - anyone would be gone.”

He didn’t get the reaction he’d been hoping for; she turned back to the mirror and traced her own reflection with her eyes, but there was something very far away in it.

Looking at another girl.

A girl. She was only twenty-two. She hadn’t finished college. She’d been snatched from the street while her mother had been dying before her very eyes - and then spent three years with John Black.

Tread carefully.

It was his father’s voice in his head, and in that instant, with that admonition ringing, he knew it was his father’s voice in her head too.

Castle clutched the scissors, gripped the edge of the sink. Fury rose in him like bile. But he couldn’t do a damn thing to undo that much damage. Not this second. It was going to take time, unlearn those messages, the deeply rooted lies.

Slowly. First, he absolutely had to put them on even ground again.

He was still naked, bare and without consciousness of it, but he laid the scissors on the side of the sink for her. “Here. Let me get some pants on. And I’ll find you something clean to wear while we cut your hair.”

She didn’t look at him, still lost in whatever dark words his father had planted in her head. He was shaking with a rage that was about to swamp him, so he left her there and headed back into his bedroom before she could see it and jump to wrong conclusions.

His fucking asshole father. What had he said to her? What things had he repeated in that insidious, snaking voice, over and over again until she was unconsciously echoing them?

You’re losing it, Richard.

Again, his damn father’s voice in his head.

“Fuck,” he harshed, yanking his boxers on over his still-damp thighs. He found black combat fatigues and tried not to rip the fabric with his anger.

When he was half-dressed and heaving in the middle of the bedroom, staring into his mostly empty closet, he realized the rage had already swept through him. Too late now. He was fucking pissed.

And it wasn’t just his father. John Black was a known enemy - had been. Castle had always known the man was seriously fucked up, that there was something wrong with him and the way he saw the world. It had just taken Castle too damn long to do something about it.

And here was the result.

He had taken too damn long.

Castle reached out and grabbed the first shirt he saw, and then he moved back into the bathroom to hand it to her. She was hunched over, still on the counter where he’d put her, the towel held up with a fist.

“Kate,” he said quietly, all of it a wound in his heart.

She straightened up and took the shirt he held out, dropping the towel entirely, not even a hint of self-consciousness. She shrugged it on and pulled her wet hair out from under the collar and he couldn’t help himself.

He leaned in and cupped her face in his hands. “You’re alive, you’re young - so heartbreakingly young, sweetheart - and you’re beautiful, inside and out. It gets better. It will get better.”

He kissed her mouth only to find that she was crying.

\-----

Kate wound her arms around his neck, pressed her face to his skin until she could stop it. Stop everything. Stop the dark sensation dragging at her and the curious light relief that had bobbed so quickly to the surface of her heart that it felt like she had come out the other side with the bends, trembling and sick.

“You’re okay,” he murmured. “We’re both gonna be okay. He’s dead and he can’t get us, and he won’t ever get those boys.”

She let out a quick breath and straightened up, swiping at her eyes. “They’re still asleep, aren’t-”

“Yeah,” he said softly. His thumb pushed aside her fingers, traced a line under her eye for the last of her tears. “I looked in on them. They’re cute and cuddling together.”

She let out a shuddering breath and nodded.

“How about a haircut, sweetheart?”

Kate laughed, more depressed than amused, but she nodded and let her arm fall from around his neck. He caught her wrists and squeezed, and she felt bolstered just by that.

She could do this. She actually could. It wasn’t like cutting her hair and going shopping was going to actually kill her. She had survived far worse.

“Here,” he said. “You should have the honors. I’ll trim it up when you’ve gotten the chunk of it you want gone.”

She blinked and twisted around on the sink, her bare ass squeaking against the plastic counter. She put her feet in the bowl for balance and peered into the mirror. She saw her face, her eyes, but it wasn’t her. She didn’t know who this woman was, but it was the face those boys wanted to see.

She trailed her eyes down the length of her hair, where it fell nearly to her waist. Too long. And it had grown so fast - the elixir and pregnancy she figured. Never had three years of growth done this. 

“He used to cut my fingernails,” she said.

“Fuck.”

Kate shivered and glanced down again. The finely clipped edges. Careful and precise at one point and now a little more ragged. “I - used to be grateful.”

Suddenly the bathroom echoed with a terrible crash. The cabinets shook with the force of his kick; he’d lashed out that fast. She stared blankly at him as he stalked off, vibrations still quivering in her bones.

“Sorry,” he choked out, coming back to her. She realized she was gripping the scissors very tightly and made herself release them. He planted his hands on the counter on either side of the bowl, caging her, but his head bowed forward. An animal noise in his throat he couldn’t seem to keep quiet.

She reached out and touched the top of his head, lightly dipped her fingers into the thickness of his hair. Her breasts ached and her nipples immediately reacted at the closeness and her touch on him, like triggers.

She leaned in and kissed the crease at the corner of his eye. “You hurt for me,” she whispered, amazement coloring the edges.

“I ache,” he groaned. “But you? You have to be-”

“I’m working through it.”

“At least you killed him. God. At least he’s damned to hell where he belongs.”

She found herself shaking.

Castle lifted and stood up straighter, apparently getting himself together once more, but Kate felt lost. She had murdered John Black. Torn out his carotid. Well, scratched at it, butchered it, hacked at it like she was about to hack at her hair.

Kate set her jaw and glanced down, dragged her legs out of the sink. She pointed her toes for the floor and slid off the counter, while Castle backed up, allowing her space. Kate turned to the mirror, determined to be done with this.

She combed one hand through her hair, measuring the length, gauging and guessing where it felt natural to stop, where the end should be. It ought to be the end, though she knew she had a while to go yet.

She brought the scissors up almost to her shoulder and opened the blades, slid the hank of her hair between them. She ground her teeth and closed the blades, feeling the satisfying resistance as she chomped through the thickest part.

It wasn’t a clean cut. But it worked. She held a tail of hair in her hand, scissors in the other and she stared at the mirror until the image resolved into her.

Her reflection.

“Here,” Castle said, holding up a trash can from behind her.

She dropped it into the bare plastic, no liner, and he lowered it to the floor beside the toilet. She glanced back to the mirror and passed the scissors over her shoulder to Castle.

“Here. Even it out for me. And don’t worry if you have to take another few inches off. It’ll be good.”

She could see something like herself in the mirror now.

\-----

Castle wasn't stupid. He was dense, and he was slow to understand the more complicated emotions - he was a machine, after all, bred to disregard all of that - but he wasn't colossally stupid.

Holding scissors at the nape of her neck and cutting her hair was a big fucking deal.

But she hadn’t said a word.

She didn't flinch, didn't shiver; she watched impassively in the mirror, critical of his work, and told him where next to shape the cut. She was rock steady and that should be impossible.

Kate Beckett should be entirely impossible. And that was why-

Castle was sunk. Dead. Over. He was drowning in it. His love of her. She shouldn't be able to do this, stand still while a man wielded a blade so close to her neck, but she didn't look fazed. She scrunched up her nose and turned her head to the side, looking at it, and then she told him more here.

She was the strongest person he had ever known. Indomitable. It made his blood run hot, his whole body licked with flames. When she accidentally brushed back against his thighs with her ass, it took extreme force of will to do nothing.

The haircut wasn't too bad. She had naturally wavy hair, a lot of body to it, but with the length somewhere just past her shoulders, there was a messy sexuality to it. 

She had her hands on her hips now, chin jutting up, studying herself in the mirror.

"So, Wonder Woman, what now?" he asked, leaning forward to kiss a flexing tricep. 

She half-turned and caught him by the ear, and her mouth smudged his even as she answered. "Now for clothes. Or did you think I was gonna go out in New York with no panties on, Castle?"

"I was hoping for no panties," he hummed, though that had never crossed his mind. "Well, you can wear a clean pair of my boxer briefs. I tried washing your stuff last night but I think I did something wrong. Everything felt scratchy."

She thumbed his ear, one swipe around the shell, and then released him, pushing away. "I'm sure it's fine. I don't think underwear is what I'm gonna be caring about."

Yeah, out in the city, all those people, but he had a plan for that. He'd been working it out all night, ease of transport and two boys and how far she might be able to walk. He’d gotten his brother on board, and he’d never managed to tell her what his surprise for her was - she was going to be very surprised.

"All right. Well, scratchy panties it is."

She laughed and shot him a look even as she walked away, but he felt good for making her smile, felt good that she could smile at all. He followed after her, searching for clothes of his own, and the bags he'd packed last night for them.

She paused, her eyes catching the duffles, and she glanced at him.

"I told you," he said. "There's a place in upstate."

Kate chewed on her lip.

"I think we need space," he got out. Not for her. He wasn’t doing this for her; she couldn't take it. Try again, Richard. "For the boys. To roam around. Here they have one room. And I - I don't know what to do with them, and they don't know what to do with themselves either. Do you? I mean, do you have any idea what to do with yourself?"

"No," she chuckled, tilting her head back. Her hair swung free. "I have no idea what to do with myself. But you keep - buying things and coming up with things, Castle, and..."

"I have the money," he said, trying not to get worked up yet. Not yet. Give her a chance. "I don't want you to think I don't have the money or that it's a thing we have to worry about. More than comfortable. Every job I took included what they call hazard pay - meaning enough to set up my family for life if I had died. Well, it would’ve gone to Colin, I guess. Makes for a good savings plan, plus, on top of that, there's a kind of trust, so I get a certain amount extra every month. Do you want to look at my books? Cause I can-"

"No," she growled, rubbing a hand down her nose. "No, I don't need to look at your books. I just..."

don't want to be dependent on him still

He heard that clear as day. It was all over her face, in the taut lines of her body standing there, and he knew he had to find a way to get her money. Monthly stipend that didn't feel like it was coming from him - didn’t feel like it came from Black either. An estate. Her parents' estate - he could look into that, or fake it, didn't matter. Everyone needed money.

"Hey," he said carefully. "For right now, Kate, this is just life." He knew that would get to her, and it did; her spine straightened and she dropped her hand, nodding. "This is how life is right now. Need money to do anything at all. And those boys - they deserve a chance. Money gives them a chance, Kate. So you and I, we do this for as long as we have to do it."

She gave him a brief, studying look, but she nodded again. "You're right."

"I feel like I ought to get that down in writing."

"What?" Bewildered eyes, brown as a doe.

"You're right. Can I get that in writing? How about I record-"

"Don't be an ass," she muttered, rolling her eyes at him. He grinned and caught her wrist as she stepped into her panties. He knew it the second after he did it that it'd been a bad idea - a power play, catching her off-guard and vulnerable, in the middle of intimacy.

He released her wrist, but slowly, tracing his fingers up the inside of her arm, hoping to undo his momentary stupidity. She pulled on her panties and straightened up and he caressed her hip under the loose material of her t-shirt, thumb dancing across the elastic of that cheap cotton.

Love welled up so thick and cloying that it filled all the spaces of the things he'd wanted to say. Instead he stepped into her and slid his hands around her waist and brought her against him, his palm pressing between her shoulder blades to keep her there.

"Will you go with me?" he murmured. "I want to do this for the boys, give them space and fresh air and access to you. But I won't if you don't want to. We can stay here. We can go anywhere at all."

A tremor went through her. "What's upstate?"

"Colin and I have a place we - um - built. In one of his manic episodes. And when it dwindled and he didn't finish it, I went in with him and put in all the modern conveniences. We've been working on it together for a while."

"Is it - it's a home?"

"Yeah, love. It's a kind of cabin in the woods. Right on the coast. Near the ocean and a river-"

"Ocean?" she said sharply. Her fingers curled in his belt loops, two fists hard at his hips. "I - yeah. Okay."

"Yeah?" he gruffed. He felt so damn grateful. "Yeah. It - if you hate it, we can leave. I just thought to get us both out of this tiny little place." Give her a bed. A damn bed at least. Her own bed, come to think of it. There were plenty of rooms.

He didn't mention that.

"So you packed up everything and determined to do it and then you told me," she said.

Castle froze. "Oh." Damn, looking at it like that. "Huh."

"Wanna try this differently next time? Like talk to me about it, as if I have any say."

"You have say. Yeah, I'll - I'll do that, yes. Next time, I'll ask first. And then we can plan it together. I wasn't thinking - I was just - hoping to save you the trouble of details and-"

"I'm mostly fucking with you," she said calmly.

He let out a breath. "But you're also serious."

"Somewhat. Yes."

"I can do better," he said quickly. "I can be better-"

"I always found myself saying that to him too," she muttered. "So don't say that to me. You don't owe me better, you don't owe-"

"Okay," he said, trying to brush past it. "Okay. I don't owe you at all. But next time, I'll talk to you."

He still held her, not letting her go, and she didn't move away. Maybe they both needed a damn hug.

He felt like everything had tilted into very precarious waters. One wrong move-

\-----

Kate knelt on the floor before James and followed Castle's lead as he changed Wyatt's diaper. At least James was being cooperative, staying still for her - though she had a feeling there was an anxiety to it. Wyatt did it as well, that tension radiating off of them as they waited out the process.

As if they'd learned early to be very still, don’t make it worse.

She swallowed. "What now?" she asked, nudging Castle with her elbow.

"You never baby-sat or anything?" he said. "Here. You have to hold up his feet so you can get everything off his ass."

"Ew."

He laughed and bumped her elbow in return, and she flashed him a smile and went back to work. There was something different about them now, since the shower, since that strange and awkward conversation, and she hoped it would last. Could last. 

James laid calmly on the floor of the boys' room, his arm clutching the rag doll, his eyes on hers. She made a face at him and he gave her a shy grin back to her.

"Hey, baby," she told him. "You happy?"

"He's happy," Castle muttered. "Better both be happy."

She swiped at the last of the - oh, gross, this was gonna make her gag - and then she didn't know what to do with it. "Ung. Help. What do I do now?"

Castle laughed at her. "Put it with the old diaper and fold the diaper up over it."

"But I have to let go of his feet."

"Then let go."

"But-"

"Do it one-handed. I know you're excellent at that."

She gaped at him, cheeks flushing hot, her whole body hot and remembering - steam and the water between them and the look on his face as he'd gripped her neck and pumped ruthlessly against her.

"Daydreaming, love," he murmured. He kissed the end of her nose. "Come on. We got a timetable here."

"Then don't say suggestive things and I won't daydream," she huffed. But even as her lust simmered down, the amusement spilled over. "You're such a little tyrant."

"Little?" he gasped. "Hardly."

"Hard is right."

"Little," he growled. He already had Wyatt on his feet, pulling up the kid’s grey sweats. Capable hands, wide and brown with sun. Black's were the same shape, but pale like dead fish.

Castle touched her cheek; she snapped back.

"Sorry-"

"Not a good daydream," he murmured.

She shook her head, short and brisk, and returned to cleaning up James. The boy was watching her, waiting on her, and she carefully folded the diaper over the dirty wipes, then lifted James by the feet and positioned a clean diaper under him. She pulled the front flap up and closed the tabs over the ends and then took another wipe and cleaned off her own fingers just to be sure.

James was very still on the floor, not moving. Kate held out her hands to him and wriggled her fingers. "Come on."

He shot Castle a hesitant look, maybe even wary, and then he strained his neck and lifted his arms to her. She caught him by the upper arms and pulled him up to his feet. James gave her a shy smile and lurched into her lap, snuggling down against her chest.

She let out a breath and wrapped her arms around him, glanced to Castle to share her surprise. But she had to laugh when she saw both of them, Castle and Wyatt sharing twin looks of jealousy. 

She opened an arm to Wyatt, only half-dressed, and gestured for him to come. Without speaking, the boy ran for her, slipping out of Castle's hands to launch himself into her chest. She juggled both boys, trying to be careful not to lift them, their little heads knocking together as they wrestled for space on her lap.

She hugged him a moment and then opened her arm again. "Castle."

He huffed, laughing, but his head ducked and he leaned in against her, wrapped his own arm around her shoulders to help hold her up against their weight. "Sorry," he muttered. "Just - just-"

She tilted her head and kissed his temple. Now Wyatt was wriggling over into Castle's lap and he had an arm around the boy and the four of them were shifting to get comfortable. "What happened to timetable?"

"Let him wait."

Kate stiffened and Castle cursed softly, and then she realized what she'd done and who her thought had immediately gone to, but no. It was just his brother. "Colin," she cleared up.

"Yeah. He's driving us. We have carseats, but we can't shop with two boys alone. I mean, I'm carrying them both easy, but then how do we carry our stuff?"

"A stroller," she murmured, tilting her head against his shoulder.

"A... oh."

She laughed and glanced up at him. "Yes, Castle. People have solved that problem long long ago."

"Shut up."

"You are not the first man in the world to have twins."

"I hate you."

She laughed harder and squeezed his earlobe between her fingers, tangled up by boys and Castle's own closeness, pinched until the flush left his cheeks. She kissed him fast. "You're cute. And are we really leaving Colin to wait?"

"I mean, yeah, he's already down there. Double-parked, I'm sure, because he thinks that's funny."

"Then let's go. Cuddling in my lap can wait. Where are we going first? Because Macy's is nice and has the parking garage, but we'd definitely need that stroller, even with Colin helping-"

"Oh. Didn't I say?"

Kate froze, her heart flipped weirdly, and then she narrowed her eyes at him and tugged his ear hard. "No. You did not say."

"Upstate, the little cabin? Um, it's about an hour from Syracuse, right on Lake Ontario, and we're gonna shop in this - uh - outdoor outlet mall there. Lots of free space."

He was wincing, shoulders hunched. He looked like he expected to be screeched at.

"An outlet mall," she let out, envisioning the drive, parking. The sky above them. No one knowing her. No one thinking it was weird letting the boys stay with her on a bench while Castle went ahead. Quiet.

Quiet.

No one would touch her, no one would have to. Space.

"I know it's not the city," he said. "And it's not Macy's or Saks or anything close to what you deserve-"

"It's perfect," she breathed out. "Just perfect." She leaned in and touched her mouth to his, found his escaping breath her own. "Get me out of here, Castle."

\-----


	14. Chapter 14

“Hey there, Colin,” she said quietly, getting into the three-seater SUV. It was a nice vehicle, and comfortable, but the boys’ car seats were in the middle so she had to either sit between them (cramped) or crawl into the back (so far away from them).

“You’re less of a mess than I am,” Colin told her. He was double-parked, as Castle had predicted, but he was idling at the curb with his large hand on the wheel, slumped low, acting cool. 

“Less of a mess?” she said. “Are you a mess?”

“I’m not apologizing for what I said. I don’t do apologies. Life is what it is.”

Kate laughed and cocked her head at him, but she finally made up her mind and crawled into the very back seat, leaving the boys alone in the middle. “You’re right. Chapter closed.”

“Chapter-” He turned around in his seat with something like genuine eagerness (for a moment, she could see Castle in him, see Wyatt’s laidback sense of fun). “You like books? I got books on tape for the drive. It’s five hours, and I go crazy sitting still that long, so I’m driving - which means I get choice.”

She grinned and folded her arms on the back of the seat in front of her. “Yeah, I do like books on tape. Though I might fall asleep, just warning you.”

“So long as you don’t ask me to rewind.”

For a man who didn’t ‘do’ apologies, he was awfully considerate. “I might ask for a recap, Col.”

“Can do.” He grinned back at her and then turned around and opened his driver’s side door. Kate glanced to the sidewalk and saw Castle coming out the front doors with both boys in his arms. Colin was ambling forward to help - or maybe to purposefully not help, messing around, getting his brother’s goat. 

Sure enough, Colin didn’t take either boy; he let Castle do all the work, though Col did open the back door for his brother. Castle grumbled something and set James on his feet in the floorboard.

“Over there, Jack. Wyatt’s going in here.”

Jack? Kate reached out a hand and took James by the arm, tugged him to crawl towards the other car seat. 

Jack. Interesting. James was a rather dignified name, but Jack was cute, short for James, she supposed. Would they even have these names in ten years? Would their adopted dad call them in for supper with the names she’d chosen for them in secret, or would it be new names all over again, another false identity?

James gave her a sour look and wriggled out of her grip; she let him go and leaned back, watched Castle wrestle the safety restraints over Wyatt’s arms. The boy had a tight grip on a bunny that he’d gotten from somewhere - Castle again, probably - and he chewed on an ear so that it made buckling him in rather difficult.

“Here, let me have that for a second,” she told him, reaching around to take it. 

Wyatt startled hard, comically, and turned his head. When he caught sight of her, he cackled and clapped his hands, then held out his arms to her.

Kate laughed back, pleased despite herself, and caught a little hand and kissed his palm. “Stay there for our trip, baby. I’ll give you back the bunny in a minute.”

Castle got Wyatt strapped and nodded his thanks to her, and she gave the bunny over to the boy. Castle shut the passenger door and came around, while she reached over the seat once more and caught James so he couldn’t go anywhere.

He gave her another look.

“Aren’t you stubborn?” she chuckled. “Let Da-Castle get you in the seat.”

His little eyebrows went up. Yeah, fine, she had nearly called Castle daddy. 

God. She was so screwed. She couldn’t take care of two boys alone, and if she started calling Castle their dad, she was really setting them all up for some extreme disappointment.

The door opened and Castle reached inside and picked up James, deposited him in the safety seat. “Okay, Jake-”

“What is this?” Kate laughed. “Are you trying out nicknames on the kid?”

Castle flushed. He actually was blushing, pink cheeked and eyes downcast. His answer came in a little rumble. “Yeah, I - yeah.”

“That’s cute,” Kate smiled. “But he’s not a Jake.”

“Naw, he’s not.”

“And I think he’s kinda put out with you for the names,” she said, nodding to James. The boy still had that sour face for them. “Aren’t you, James?”

He turned his head to her immediately, opened his empty fists.

“Oh, shit,” Castle croaked. “It’s not that. I left his rag doll upstairs. Fuck. Sorry, James, my bad. It dropped but I forgot to pick it up. Be right back.”

And then Castle was slamming the door closed and hustling back for the apartment building. Kate watched in stunned silence as he left them, and then she turned to Colin back in the driver’s seat.

“Is he - um - always like this?”

“What? Chasing after baby toys or manipulating everyone into doing what he thinks is best?”

She bit her lip. “Yeah, that last one.”

Colin shrugged. Fiddled with something on the display. “Well, the only thing you gotta worry about is how damn right he always is. Makes him think he can’t fail. That he’ll never fail - he might lose a battle now and then, but he’s abso-fucking-lutely certain he will win the war.”

Kate stared out the window towards the closed blank sidewalk.

He will win the war.

\-----

Castle climbed into the back with Kate, leaning over the seat to check that their meager belongings were still where he'd packed them tight. He had even dismantled the baby bed and slid the railings and mattress in the narrow clearance beneath the seats.

He felt pretty damn optimistic about this trip. Eight weeks on the coast of Lake Ontario in the cabin that he and Colin had built out like a bachelor pad - yeah, he felt optimistic. The shower alone was fucking incredible, and at least the two master suites were separated from each other. Colin never had to put up with any of the playing house that they'd be doing. 

Plus the walls were lined with copper, expensive as it was. Sheets of copper that were the real insulation.

No one had to be in anyone's head if they didn't want to be. He wondered how that would feel for the boys, everything suddenly muffled. Or maybe the boys were stronger even than Colin, maybe the copper did nothing for them.

It would be interesting. And Kate - God, he hoped Kate got a chance to just be alone and survive this and build herself back up again. There was something dark seething inside her and he'd seen mere glimpses, like a lake monster, and he knew from experience that thing couldn't be killed - only, maybe, sometimes, tamed.

She had gone a long way towards taming his. She touched him and the war ceased, laid down arms to follow her like the pied piper. He hoped she found a way to do that for herself.

"Kate?"

She was leaning forward against the back of the seat in front of them, stroking her fingers through James's dark hair. The boy finally had his rag doll, and he had tucked it up against his cheek and leaned against the side of the car seat. His eyes kept drooping at the touch of her hand.

"Yeah," she sighed.

"You ready?" he asked, glancing at Colin. His brother was waiting on his word, and Castle wanted to be absolutely sure she was okay with this. Taking her out of the city she had fought so hard to get back to.

She must have understand. She dropped her fingers from James's hair and turned around to him. "There's nothing left for me here, is there? So. Might as well."

Castle took her hand and squeezed. "There's the whole world left to you, Kate. It's yours, to do with as you like. That's your inheritance, that's what your parents wanted for you."

Her lips twisted and she pressed her face into the crook of her arm for a second, shoulders hunching. Castle didn't regret his words, but he wished he knew a better way to say them. 

"Hey," Colin said from the front. "None of that. We're going to my cabin and it fucking rocks. Everyone should be so lucky. You hear that, babies? You little pipsqueaks are lucky."

Kate chuckled and lifted her head, turned to share with Castle her amusement. He grinned back to see it, lifted his arm to drop his hand on top of Wyatt's head. The boy giggled and began to clap, a fast round of applause.

"I think we have our answer," Castle laughed.

And they were off.

\-----

When the apartment had disappeared in their rearview, and the city was a grey and bleak line of blocks ahead, Kate sat back in the seat and finally let it go. She didn’t have to stay. She probably shouldn’t stay.

But instead of following signs for the interstate and letting the landscape slide by, the SUV angled a different direction and sailed through a light at a less-than-busy intersection. She sat up again.

"Where are we going?"

"I found something," Castle said quietly. "And I thought you should have it."

"H-have it?"

"The - experience."

"Castle, do not surprise me," she hissed, slapping his shoulder. He was sitting close, thigh against her thigh, now that she had noticed. "I don't want to be caught offguard by another-"

"It's their graves."

She gaped at him. Grief cleaved her.

Castle caught her jaw with his hands, dragged her down against his chest. She was muffled by the heat of his body and the cotton of his t-shirt, and she sucked in a ragged breath to keep tears at bay.

"It's a beautiful place," he murmured in her ear. "Trees, oh the trees are high and the wind runs through the leaves and it's soft and dappled with the sun. It was some property your dad had bought, I think he had plans to build there, a foundation had been poured sometime before you - you disappeared."

"Oh, God," she moaned. Her dad. Her dad had wanted a cabin outside the city near the lake where he could fish and her mother had said it was too much and they never could get away and she wasn't retiring any time soon. 

"It's beautiful, honey. I - I tried to find a way to get it for you, but the estate is gone. We’re still working on it, but I don’t know that it’ll happen."

Kate tightened her arm around his neck and shuddered, trying fiercely to take the beautiful and get rid of all the rest of it. Beautiful, and the trees, and the sun and her dad with a cabin and now - and now-

"It's okay, love. Cry if you want. It's not fair at all, to have fought for so long and come out of everything and not have either of them."

She wanted to pummel him until he shut up about it; she wanted to pound her fists into Dick Coonan's sweaty, grinning, fat face until she broke every bone in his skull and every bone in her hands and then she wanted to kick the shit out of John Black.

Kick a hole in his throat and wear a pair of fuck-me heels and grind the heel into his eye like she did with that scalpel but with none of the sick sick fear that had gripped her then - only pure and lusty satisfaction. Such fucking terrible satisfaction, and now she saw she had done what they had done time and again; she had been made into one of them.

"I don't want to see it," she choked out, worming away from him. Withdrawing her arm and pushing him off of her. "I can't see that. I don't - I can't be there."

"Kate?"

"What the hell?" Colin cursed from the front. "I just fucking found-"

"Shut the fuck up, Colin. Keep driving."

"No," she groaned. "No, I don't get to step foot on that - that - it's hallowed ground and I ruined everything-"

Castle gripped her face between his hands and her eyes snapped to his. Crackling blue intensity, lightning through her guts. He shook her and she gasped, her head pounding.

"Do not fucking think I will let you tell yourself his lies. No more, Kate Beckett. No more."

She was shaking so hard she couldn't lift her hands to remove his, couldn't even hide her face. Shame poured hotly through her, leaked out like tears.

Castle's grip was fierce. "This starts over, right here, right now. We start over, Kate. I've done some fucking terrible, sick things all because he told me to. Damn." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Damn, I did - I was a horror, Kate. But that's over. Both of us are done with that. Whatever you did, however it happened, there was no choice for you. No other way forward. Now we figure out how to live with it."

"I can't let them see me," she whispered, tears streaming down her face. She could hear both boys mewling in their seats but her whole being was locked into his. She needed him, needed him to say she didn't have to be like this. “My parents can’t know I-”

"They already see you, sweetheart." His thumbs traced her cheekbones. "Oh, honey, you have to know they're why you're here."

"I - I've let them down-"

"No. Never." His lips came to hers, whispered his negative into her mouth, again and again until their foreheads were pressed together and the tears had dried up.

She was so tired of this.

But she didn't know how to be better.

\-----

The SUV turned off the rural highway onto a dirt track, and finally Castle understood what his brother had been talking about. Colin had been the one to cut back the overgrowth, and damn, it obviously had been a job. 

The woods grew in so thick and close that the gravel that had once been a clean drive was buried beneath detritus and weeds. More than that, the individual rocks had been carried away by the last few years worth of weather, so that all that was left was this choked trail meandering back to nowhere.

It should have been so different. Even Castle felt sick as they drove up. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the back of Wyatt’s seat, stared through the front windshield. The foundation had been poured - maybe it had been a Christmas present to himself, or Jim getting ready to surprise his wife for a birthday that had never come. Who knew, now? Jim wasn’t alive to ask.

Kate was stiff beside him, but when he glanced back at her, her eyes were ravenous over the landscape. He didn’t speak, afraid to make it worse, and all of them remained silent as Colin drove them away from the foundation and back towards a kind of clearing beside a lake.

There was a dip as they went somewhat offroad, and then the SUV climbed up the rise where the land overlooked the lake and the foundation both. A boathouse might have been planned for that nestle down below, and the rise this nice picnic area - but now the trees ringing the clearing shaded two headstones.

Castle let out a breath, haunted by the visions coming to life around them.

It wasn’t even his family - Jim and Johanna Beckett were nothing to him - and yet his throat had closed up and his chest had gotten too tight. He glanced over to James and saw the boy had his face turned towards the back as if seeking Kate.

Well, the boys should be here. This was theirs too, and the two grave markers, pale and white against the green, were their family, even if not Castle’s.

Colin stopped the SUV before they reached the top, put the vehicle into park and cut the engine. Castle leaned forward and unbuckled Wyatt first, and then he sank back and opened his own door. He left Kate to her own devices - she could choose to join them or not - and he jumped to the mangled grass where they had come to rest.

He opened the middle door and reached in for Wyatt, slipped the boy’s arms out from the loosened straps. “Ready?” he said quietly. “Let me get your brother.”

He set Wyatt on his feet and closed the door, let the kid roam as he headed around the back of the SUV. Kate was a still form inside, but he didn’t look at her; he just worked on getting James out and putting him on his feet as well.

Wyatt was stalking a bird across the open clearing, bent nearly double with his hands on his knees as he watched the bird and tried to catch it. Castle took James by the wrist and led him towards his brother, intending that they make it to the grave stones eventually.

He could see they were set off by a kind of stone fence, just a narrow line of them in the grass where nature hand’t covered over it yet. Johanna’s grave was a darker color than Jim’s, and moss had grown on the smooth, north side of the stone. In winter, it would be depressing, the dried moss in brown clumps and the trees bare, but right now it was homely and bleakly beautiful.

And he wished Kate would get out of the car.

Colin finally did, though he walked some distance down to the lake and sat down against what looked to be an aging pile of construction material. Two by fours and wood with a tarp thrown over it that had blown halfway off during some previous storm. 

Castle glanced back to the boys, saw James had squatted down before a dead moth overrun with ants. He came closer and hunched over to join James there, his elbows on his knees for balance. 

The moth was - had been - huge, one of those orange Atlas months that shouldn’t be indigenous to the Northeast but somehow still were. Maybe it wasn’t an Atlas, maybe it was something else, but those ants had taken apart the furry body and now it pulsed as if it were alive, writhing with the movement of those worker drones.

Castle grabbed James’s arm before he could reach out and touch it. “Leave it alone, James.”

The boy glanced at him and desisted, but he still studied it, fascinated or confused or just overwhelmed by the newness, Castle couldn’t tell. 

“It’s a dead moth,” he said finally, thinking he ought to be explaining all this stuff the kids had never seen before. “It died and fell to the ground and now the ants are taking it apart, bit by bit, and taking it home for dinner.”

James grunted.

“Everything’s gotta eat, kid.”

Wyatt came over and squatted down just like Castle, or trying to anyway, and all three of them watched the ants in their prodigious work, the moth the size of Castle’s whole hand and spread fingers and the ants barely discernible except en masse.

“Well, that’s not what I thought we’d be looking at.”

Castle startled so hard that he rocked sideways and went down on one knee, turned around to see Kate standing only a few feet from them. Wyatt hopped up and went running for her, crashing into her knees, and Kate leaned over and cupped the side of his head, but her eyes were on the moth.

“Dying?” she asked.

“Swarmed with ants,” he said, standing. Her face blanched - apparently the ants couldn’t be seen from there. “Long dead, Kate.”

She swallowed and nodded and her eyes drifted past him and towards the trees. No - towards the two graves. Long dead.

Castle leaned over and grabbed James by the wrist, tugged him to stand. “No,” Castle said quietly. “Can’t leave you here - don’t want you touching that. Come on. Come with Mom and keep her company.”

James stood but he lifted his arms to Castle; he didn’t mind that, figured it would be easier if he held on to one of them anyway. He picked up the boy and turned around, saw Kate watching him.

She must have heard him. He’d called her mom. Thoughtlessly. He should’ve kept that between him and the boys; she wasn’t ready for that. She still thought life held no promise, and he was so damn determined-

“No, don’t,” she croaked.

Castle stopped immediately where he was. Only five feet from the graves and maybe two from her and Wyatt. She was swaying, her eyes on those markers, her eyes so deep and troubled and grief-stricken that Castle didn’t think - he just moved.

He came to her side and took Wyatt’s hand and he led those boys straight to the stone perimeter, knowing she would follow. When he and Wyatt and had stepped over, James a heavy weight in his right arm, she finally did.

She stayed outside the circle of stones, but Castle moved Wyatt to the grass between the markers, let go of his hand. He shifted James and put him on his feet beside the still-sharply etched stone for Johanna Beckett, and he knelt in the grass there.

Kate hovered just beyond the stones, as if they divided sacred from profane, as if the ground here - where Castle had just broken blades and led two squirming boys - was somehow holy.

“Kate,” he called quietly. “Come introduce us.”

That’s what did it.

She stepped over the stones just as tears streaked down her face, but she didn’t make a sound. She sank to the grass beside him and stared at the markers, her eyes burnished gold and pink in the morning light.

James crawled over into her lap and climbed to stand on her thighs, his face right up against hers. She swiped at one track of tears, put a loose arm around the boy, giving him a flickering smile.

Wyatt crawled behind Jim’s marker and came out the other side with a flower in his mouth - wild yellow and petals crushed against his lips. Castle groaned, had to lean out and snag his ankle, and then swipe his finger in Wyatt’s mouth to get out all the pieces even while Wyatt made faces and spluttered against the intrusion. 

And then Kate was laughing.

She hung on to James and wiped the heel of her hand under her cheeks, but she was chuckling and shaking her head at Wyatt. And then after a second, she seemed to catch her breath and her eyes briefly tracked to his before she gazed back down to Wyatt.

“No, son, you don’t eat the flowers. You leave them on their graves. My mom and dad.” She took a steadying breath and her head turned, her face towards the light, the two stones in her vision. “They would have loved you guys.”

Castle sat very still, Wyatt in his lap, and hoped like crazy she didn’t notice him still here.

Because he wanted to be one of her guys, he wanted to be someone her parents would have loved.

\-----

Kate laid flat on her back and watched the thinning clouds combed over by the same wind that teased her hair and kept the sweat from sliding down the insides of her elbows. James was asleep on her folded inside thigh, his head fitting snugly against her knee so that his bottom faced her. She smiled to herself and patted him softly, the material of his sweatpants smoothing out over the diaper.

The clouds were pulled like taffy across the blue sky, and the sun was nearly overhead. Blackberry winter, her dad used to call this kind of day - chilled by a northern polar wind so that not even the sun could break a sweat. Winter wanting them back.

She lifted her hand from where she’d been unconsciously stroking at the blades of grass and she shaded her eyes from the cool-yellow sun. Castle was a ways, his broad back just in her vision down the hillock where the lake met the rocky shore. She watched his muscles bunch and smooth as he worked, unpacking the tent.

Hadn’t been her idea, not really. But Colin had taken the SUV back into the little roadside hardware-store of a town and he wasn’t due back until nightfall (Castle hadn’t explained, and she wasn’t sure why now that she hadn’t asked). He’d left them the tent and a duffle bag, and it wasn’t that they’d be sleeping out here under the stars, but it was a convenient place to keep the boys contained.

And she’d probably nap with them. Lunch was creeping up on them and she wasn’t hungry, but she ought to eat so that when she nursed, the boys had something.

She didn’t feel like getting up though. James asleep on her leg, Wyatt crawling beside Castle to investigate, and the sun deadened by the wind. Whippoorwill winter - that was the other one. Phantom fingers of winter that crept over late spring and into early summer.

She felt those phantoms, felt the heat of the earth under her back as the planet hurtled through space. She felt it, despite the boy anchoring her to the ground. Spinning, fast, sickening. 

She closed her eyes and gasped at the sensation, falling - she could be falling right off the earth.

“Kate?”

She grunted as the spell broke, opened her eyes. She could see, at the very edges of her peripheral vision, those two markers rising up like calcified wings.

Castle was standing over her. Hands on his hips. “I’ve got the tent up. We can put both the boys in there, zip them in, and eat some lunch before you nurse.”

“Maybe we should be feeding them lunch instead,” she sighed. They needed to wean. She needed to not need them. Her milk would dry up; she knew that much.

“Easier like this,” he said softly. “For now. Means I know for sure that this stuff is leaving your system.”

She sighed and slitted her eyes at him. Looming over her in the grass and she barely even cared. Why did it sometimes send panic crawling in her guts and sometimes she just thought he looked so damn hot?

“Pedialyte,” she grimaced.

He grinned, a little crooked, a kind of shrug. “You know it. Works, love.”

Kate slowly patted James’s rump and nodded to the boy. “Get him. Help me up,” she told Castle.

He leaned over and slid a hand under James’s belly, right against her inside thigh, and her breath caught. The wicked thrill of his fingers, hard and intent as they worked against her to get a hold of James-

“You okay?” he whispered. “You have a funny look on your face. Flushed and-”

“Hurry up and get this kid off me,” she croaked. Her cheeks were flushed, and the blood rushed at her inside thighs. “Promise we’re alone?”

“Wh-what?”

“You promise? We’re alone and Colin’s not coming back and no stupid hunter will come bumbling out of the woods?”

Castle finally got James lifted away from her and Kate immediately sat up, scrambling to her feet as her heart raced. Castle was giving the monitor watch little ticks of his eyes as he struggled to understand her, but Kate reached up inside her shirt and ripped the sensor pads off.

“Kate!”

She pushed them into the outside thigh pocket of his combat pants, shoving him down the slope towards the lake. Away from the graves of her parents, away from the the sick sensation of the earth swallowing her up.

Towards everything else.

“Kate?”

“Zip the kids up in the tent,” she told him. “Right now. I want you.”

\-----

He had one fleeting thought, when his hands were fumbling with the zipper to keep the boys in the tent, one thought to stop her here, but then it was gone.

Maybe someone normal, maybe a good guy would calm her down and hold her while she cried, but that wasn’t him and she didn’t want that guy anyway. She wanted him.

He was going to do whatever wanting she might need to do, even if it meant her on her knees before him.

As she was now, staring over at him with her chest heaving where she’d cajoled both boys into the tent only for Castle to zip them in. But while having her on her knees made something dark in him leap, he instead reached out and cupped her face, brought her against him for a kiss, both of them on their knees.

Kate moaned and her hands snaked under his t-shirt, branding his skin. He got a grip on the back of her neck, fisting her hair, and dragged his free hand down her back to grip her ass. She writhed against him and pressed closer, his shirt already half pulled up his back in her desperation.

He kneaded her ass, staying away from that sensitive place between her legs, but she squirmed nonetheless. Everything fucking got her. Everything heightened her and made her crazy for him.

Fuck.

Castle angled his mouth against hers and stroked his tongue inside, mimicking the thrust she wanted but couldn’t have. Her moan was a feeling in his chest and then her hands were caressing his stomach and working at his pants.

She jerked her lips away from his, panting harshly at his cheek. Her nose was crushed there and she nudged against him, breathing hard before her words came to his ear like silk.

“I want you in my mouth.”

“Fucking hell,” he groaned.

“That better be a yes.”

“Yes,” he croaked out, devouring her mouth again. Yes, yes, yes. He pushed his taste inside her, stroked the hot cavern of her mouth where his cock would soon be. He was already hard, his erection rising against the bump and work of her fingers as she got into his pants.

Her palm connected with his shaft and he jerked, gasping against her mouth. 

“Okay?” she breathed.

“Hardly,” he choked out. “You touch me and I - I - can hardly - fuck. We need to do this away from the damn tent.”

Kate laughed, dark and delighted, and he had to remember this, had to remind himself to pay attention, close attention, because she was this kind of woman.

Doing him no favors, helping him out not at all. Still working her hand around him.

Castle had to grip her wrist and pinch until he struck that nerve; she grunted and let go of him, and Castle immediately got to his feet, dragging her up with him.

His pants hung loosely at his hips, but he didn’t fucking care. He just slid his arm through hers and pulled her away from the tent. It was shifting and bulging with the boys as they played, looked like they were wrestling. He ignored it, and fuck they’d done this with the boys right in the bed with them, but it probably wasn’t okay.

Pay attention.

“Here,” he told her, stepping over the wood framing the concrete foundation. Kate didn’t even balk; it was like she barely noticed where they were, following him over. 

Castle had settled their supplies on the slab, thinking only to keep everything out of the way and dry, but now he unzipped the duffle and pulled out a blanket. He laid it out on the concrete and Kate went down to her knees immediately, reaching for his open pants.

He stared down at her, caught her face in his hands and held her there. Just a moment, just to look at her, to really see her.

She was sad. And she was trying everything she knew to keep from feeling it. 

He didn’t mind that; he didn’t mind being used at all. He hoped it helped.

“Take me out,” he said roughly, but his fingers were tender against her jaw. “Touch me how you want to, not how you think I want it. How you want to feel-”

“Shut up,” she whispered, dusting a kiss to his inside wrist. “You talk too much, Castle. I’m not down here for a therapy session. I’m down here to suck you off.”

He grunted and she grinned up at him, sly smile through the line of her lips, the bat of her lashes. He gripped her jaw tighter and leaned over her, pulling his hips out of her hands, and he kissed her roughly.

Force behind his tongue, teeth gnawing her lip. She moaned and scrambled to reach his hips, yanked him closer even as she ripped away from his mouth.

She buried her face in his groin and inhaled sharply - and he felt it everywhere, intense shocks of electricity jolting through him.

Kate shoved his pants down to his ankles and gripped the backs of his thighs. She rubbed her face against the bulge in his boxers, bit at the stretchy material with a growl. Castle yelped and let go of her, hurriedly pushed his boxers down his thighs as he grit his teeth.

She was rough with him, like she knew he was on the edge, and she scraped her nails up his thighs as she lifted back up. Her mouth sucked kisses at the creases of his legs, right at his groin, and she licked a line around his balls.

“Kate,” he cursed, warning and need both. He found the soft fall of her hair at her shoulders, gripped tightly. “Let me - let me fuck your mouth, baby.”

She moaned, her cheek nuzzling against him, and then her head tilted back. He forced his eyes open to stare down at her and found her studying him, eyes hazed and face flushed.

“You do it,” she husked. “Fuck me until you come and let it wash down my throat, all of it.”

Castle growled, every last bit of his control at the breaking point. She was a dark thing kneeling before him, penitent, hungry, and he knew that denying her would be the same as stabbing her in the heart.

Too much grief. Too much abandonment.

“Open your mouth,” he told her. “And let me fist your beautiful hair, love.”

Kate blinked and then slowly her lips parted and her mouth opened. He cupped her jaw and stroked, imagining himself at her sex and how she’d open for him there, how he’d work her up so much she would be wide and gaping for him.

Kate licked her bottom lip and he growled, wound his fingers in her hair and made fists of it, tugging softly. She came in close and he pressed his fists into her jaw to angle her up to him, to take him.

His cock pushed in slowly, immediately throbbing at the humidity of her mouth, her breath coming out fast and caressing him. 

“Your tongue for a little bit, and then I’ll tell you when to close up around me.”

Kate moaned and darted her tongue across his shaft, making his whole body shiver. She did it again and he groaned, forcing his eyes to stay open and watch her, pay attention, be sure she could do this.

Kate flattened her tongue against the underside of his shaft and licked, a broad stripe upwards as she hummed. His cock pulse sharply and bobbed in her mouth, and it was too much; he had to pump his hips, he had to fuck her.

Softly, gently, fuck her gently.

“Close your mouth around me,” he growled.

Kate sucked.

He roared out a curse and his hips snapped up; Kate choked and rose up a little, but she swallowed against him and sucked him harder. He slitted his eyes to keep her face in sight, his cock disappearing between those stretched lips, her hair wild where he had gripped the dark strands in his fists.

He pumped his hips and she gagged, but when he tried to withdraw, she chased after, gagging herself again on the head of his cock. Her throat worked, her mouth and tongue, and he cursed again and found himself thrusting.

Shallow thrust but - but fuck. He had to. He had to slide his cock in and out of her mouth, smooth, slow, a little deeper and a little more as she opened her mouth for him. Her tongue was so hot, and her throat kept gulping against him. For some reason the blanket under his bare feet felt crazy intense, like it was connected to his cock, and he gripped her hair tighter and stroked deeper.

Kate gagged and swallowed, her hands kneading the backs of his thighs as she struggled to keep him close. She didn’t seem to want his withdraw, and every time he pumped to her throat, she hummed and gripped him harder.

After a while, these slow strokes in and out weren’t enough, not at all, and he tried to fight the sting of his urgency but it was an iron fist around his guts.

Faster.

Harder.

Castle thrust and she rocked back with it, hanging on to him just barely. Her moan vibrated down into his balls and it was like a fire had been lit, sparking up and catching him so that he was fucking her now.

He was fucking her mouth.

Castle gripped her hair and pulled her onto his cock, timing his breaths to hers to be sure, gritting his teeth as she pushed her tongue against him and her teeth caught at his head and her whole fucking mouth fucking swallowed him down.

“Kate,” he ground out. “Kate.”

She hummed, something like approval, but he had to be sure she knew.

“Kate. I’m - com-ing. Now.” Castle roared the last of it even as his sperm shot out of him, his orgasm so fierce it ripped his guts out with it. He could feel his cock pulsing against her lips and tongue and the inside of her mouth, feel her swallowing and swallowing against him and sucking it down, all of it, all of his fucking seed as it pumped out of him.

And then he was crumpling to his knees before her.

\-----

Kate caught her breath as he carried her down to the blanket, but he was on top of her before she could move. His mouth against hers, his kiss like fire, urgent and needful. She opened for him and stroked her tongue against his and he moaned in her mouth, moaned terrible and dark and she’d done that to him.

She could feel the hot place between them where his cock was pressed to her thigh, but even better, the bare skin of his legs and ass. She gripped him there and held him to her, and his knees slotted beside hers to keep her own legs closed.

She grinned against his mouth and he growled, unhappy to have her mouth away from his, like one of the boys, wanting her.

Oh, but so much better. His tongue, his teeth against her bottom lip, tugging on her smile. She arched under him and he growled again, pushing her back down, pinning her. He was braced on his forearms over her, and he had an arm at her back pushing her breasts up against his chest.

She squeezed his ass and he gave a little reflexive thrust into her, and it felt so amazing, how she held his body, how she controlled his every response. 

She wanted this damn shirt off. Both shirts, all of it. “Off,” she grunted. “Get-”

Castle rose up from her, startled eyes that burned with this thing between them. She blinked as her focus came back, and she palmed his back and rubbed her hands up under his shirt. 

“Help me,” she murmured. “Help me get your clothes off.”

He laughed suddenly, a bright kind of sound, and she glanced past the joy swallowing his face to the sky beyond, the clouds where they wreathed the sun, the tops of trees in her vision even here.

The world turned, veered sharply, and she clutched his back to hold him down, to bring him down. “Don’t go,” she whispered, her mouth against his neck. “Don’t move.”

“Let me move a little,” he murmured against her temple. His tongue touched her cheek and she shivered, surprised, and then his mouth caressed the line of her jaw down to her throat.

Kate moaned, head tilting back, and felt his kiss go on, open-mouthed and wet as it trailed down her neck. She rose up into him, clutching at his shirt, mindless with the feel of him over her. Her eyes flared open and the sky was brilliant - so vividly blue - like his eyes.

He pressed her shirt up, touched his mouth to her belly. She cried out, things falling apart inside her, and Castle pushed her shirt over her head. She wormed her arms up, allowed him to pull her shirt off, blinking at the sudden reveal of his face above her.

Was he going to do it now? She wanted him to. She wanted to feel him inside her, wanted to watch his face as he sank home.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, cradling the back of her neck with one strong hand. His mouth dipped to hers, touching again, and she felt his free hand cup her breast. He didn’t move to take it off, only rubbed his thumb over the material of the bra, while his mouth kissed her.

Tongue. Heat. She opened wider, pushed up into him, stroking against his strokes, breathing fast in between kisses. She had never felt like this, had never kissed like this, and she found herself winding her whole body around his, arms and legs, urgency replaced with the wave of feeling.

“Careful, careful,” he murmured, his hand on her hip. He pressed her down to the blanket again, unwound her leg. “Slow down, baby. Give me a chance.”

“Chance for what?” she said, restlessness beginning to rise up again. It beat in her chest like a heart, like a wing. She could fly if only he would-

“Chance to love you right,” he whispered. His mouth came to hers and sealed her protest in her throat. His fingers skated over her hip bone and under the elastic of her leggings and pushed them down. She rose up into his touch and he caressed as he unclothed her, dragging off her leggings and following his mouth.

She moaned as his lips touched her inside thigh, his fingers dancing over the spot. She wanted more, wanted his mouth on hers, his body pressing her down. Castle’s lips feathered her belly button and she gasped a laugh, opening her eyes again to the sky.

So blue. Streaked with thin clouds as they scuttled across the earth, driven by wind. Her hair waved around her face where it had gotten free and Castle came crawling up her body to smooth it back down, tendrils behind her ear.

Love you right. His fingers caressed her cheek and his hips pressed down into hers, his cock half-hard at her thigh. She groaned as he settled over her, pushing out her breath with the width and weight of him.

It’s not love; not love; it’s not. 

He touched her stomach and she cried out, and he pressed his hips down into her, hard, keeping her there. Keeping her tethered to the earth.

She trembled with it, everything in her body craving more, not love, not love, not love, and he touched his mouth to hers.

Kate moaned, felt the sound of her need falling open and spilling out, and still he kept her there, kept her down. She wrapped her arms around him and worked her hands under his shirt, tugging up, scraping her nails on his back in her haste.

He grunted and shifted, lifting up only enough to rip off his own shirt, and now they were skin to skin and hot, he was a flame against her, a burning flame that encompassed her whole body and melted down her bones.

And her resistance. She realized she still had on her bra and panties, that he was being very careful to keep her legs together, that he touched her all over and not just one place, stoking a blaze that burned under her skin without igniting a wildfire.

not love, not love, not love

He caressed her jaw and kissed her softly, and then his mouth came down her body again and began that slow journey across her skin, unrelenting.

\-----

She was on top of him, skin glowing pink in the noon sunlight, her hair waving in the breeze. She peeled off her sports bra and flung it to the side, and her breasts bounced, nipples puckering tight.

Castle gripped her hips when she rocked, stilling her movement, but she didn’t seem to realize she’d been doing it. She pressed her palms flat to his chest and grinned down at him, her breasts swinging forward.

“Like what you see?” she murmured, eyebrow lifting.

“Mm, you know it,” he said, clearing his throat as she dropped down to her forearms on top of him. Her breasts were pressed together by the movement and that was even worse - even better - and his cock was pulsing again.

Had been, off and on, the whole time they’d been doing this. Making out, petting, whatever the word was for this. Teasing. All of it was a damn cocktease, but at least she looked happy.

She looked happy.

Castle skated his hands up her back and pressed her down to him, softly kissing her. He knew every nook and cranny of her body, but for her sex, and there was something electric about building these sensations in each other without orgasm.

Kate stroked her tongue inside his mouth and hummed, pulled back to stroke his face with her fingers. “I like this.”

“What?” he rasped. “What do you like?”

“Your - this beard thing you have going.” She kissed him again, her smile threatening to break him. “I guess you haven’t shaved?”

“Few days,” he murmured, watching her. His hands coasted up and down her back, slowly, came around her ribs to brush the backs of his fingers at her skin. She liked that - her breath always hitched and her eyes darkened when he got close to her breasts.

He’d learned her, these last few hours. He had learned what places on her body made her crazy, and how much he could touch without pushing her over. They were skirting a dangerous line, but he knew it thrilled her as much as it did him.

“You normally leave it this long?” she said, touching her lips to his chin. Her teeth scraped and tugged his scruff.

“Don’t really think about it. Unless it’s needed for a mission.”

She smiled against his chin and shifted up, on her elbows against his chest, and her kiss pecked his lips. “Tell me about that. Missions.”

“Mm, what do you want to know?” He cupped her breasts and she sucked in a breath, eyes glinting gold as he slowly rubbed.

“Want - want to know what it’s like,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering shut.

“It’s hard work,” he answered, thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts. Teasing. “Used to do deep cover, when I was your age.”

She laughed and brought her hands to his, touching him as he touched her. “My age, hm?”

“Now it’s just a courier thing. Delivering messages.”

“Messages?” Her eyes flicked from his down to where her hands covered his. “Don’t believe that.”

Castle kneaded her breasts so that she moaned. Into her dark pleasure, he said, “Assassinations are a kind of message.”

“Oh, God.”

“Sometimes feels like that,” he whispered. His thumbs dusted across her nipples and she gasped, pushing into his touch. Castle lifted his head and brought himself upright, angling her in his lap to put his mouth on her breasts.

She moaned and cradled his head in her arms, keeping him close. He sucked lightly at the upper slope of her breast, avoiding her nipples, knowing now how delicate he had to be with her.

Kate rocked, and he gripped her thigh with one hand, keeping her sex away from his lap, away, so that she rocked against the air. She moaned when he put her off, but he kissed her and swallowed the sound.

With his hand kneading her breast, the milk came up, beading on her nipple, and he could feel it trickle over his thumb. She was moaning now into his mouth, kissing him back, ardent and fierce, gripping his hips with her knees and his ears with her fingers.

He let it go on like that, let her frenzy crest upward, and then he bodily took her down. She hit the blanket with a grunt and her eyes flared open, but Castle had already shifted her legs closed and pressed his cock against her thigh.

She keened against him, more demand than need, and he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her again. She was shivering with it, unwinding her arms from between them to wrap around his neck. 

Castle lifted up as far as he could and watched, the way her eyes slowly opened and her arms loosened. There was a drop of milk that had rolled over her nipple and under her breast, and he lowered his head to catch it with his tongue. He felt her flesh ripple at his touch and he sucked at her skin until he left a mark.

She gasped and then laughed, clutching his ears. No more of that, he knew, and instead he laid down at her side and dragged her against him. Kissed her neck in lazy swipes of his lips.

“You’re very good at this,” she murmured.

“Me? I’m more of a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type, Beckett. You’re the one who is oh so very good at this.”

She laughed again, though maybe because he was tickling her with his scruff, and he slid his fingers in a flare over her hip before bringing her into him. She still had on those panties, acting as a meager chastity belt, and even Kate seemed content to leave it that way.

He stroked her hair out of his face and smoothed it down behind her ears. She turned her head into him and nuzzled his hand.

Nuzzled, her cheek pressing into his palm.

It was the same. It was the same as when she nudged into those boys and said she loved them in the only way left to her.

He cupped her cheek and kissed her very softly, and then he brought her against his chest and laid them both back against the blanket. Underneath that, the concrete slab of her father’s foundation was cold, so cold, but he hoped his heat would keep her warm long enough to sleep.

\-----


	15. Chapter 15

Kate shifted and came awake, her own movement dunking her into the cold waters of the late afternoon. She opened her eyes and found Castle below her, his arms banded around her torso, one corner of the blanket pulled up and tucked in with his hand.

“Rick,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes against his shirt. “What time’s it?”

“Nearly five,” he whispered.

“Oh no,” she groaned. “The boys-”

“They fell asleep,” he said, catching the back of her head. “They’re okay.”

“Did you get up and look?” she muttered, trying to push herself off of him. 

“No,” he whispered. “Should - the tent stopped rumbling. I just figured-”

“They’re babies,” she growled. 

Kate lifted up and found herself naked. Mostly. Her breasts ached fiercely, full with milk, and she winced as the cold air scraped across her nipples. When she shivered, Castle sat up with her, hanging on to her hips to keep her from falling.

“Sorry. I should have checked. You’re right.” He wriggled on the blanket and yanked it out from under him, caped it around her shoulders and tugged it closed. He kissed her nose. “Go.”

Kate let out a breath, relief pounding hard in her chest, and she scrambled up off of him, her feet bare on the concrete foundation. She jumped over the wood shivs still in place at the edge and ran for the tent sitting only a few feet away.

She had a grip on the blanket but she had to let go to unzip the tent, dropping to her knees as she wrestled with it. Her blood thundered in her ears and she yanked the flap down even as the blanket dropped.

Both boys were huddled together near the back, nested in blankets. Asleep.

Kate slumped.

“Are they okay?” Castle said quietly. She turned her head and he was standing right there, shoulders up around his ears; he’d pulled on his boxers.

“They’re asleep,” she admitted.

He let out a breath. “Good,” he said, nodding hard. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She felt naked. She was naked. Her skin pebbled with goose bumps. “I - freaked out.”

“I didn’t think,” he said. “I just - wanted you. I should have thought.”

She shook her head and hesitated at the threshold of the tent. Her skin crawled, the wind blowing fiercely so that she shivered hard. 

“Damn,” he said. “Let me find your clothes. Crawl in there and get out of the wind and I’ll gather up our stuff.”

“Are you - coming in?” she said, still hesitating.

He turned, already halfway to where they had shed their clothes. “I want to. Do you want me to-”

“Of course I do,” she cried out. Her heart was pounding. “I just - I’ll nurse them and then-”

“Oh, right,” he said, bobbing his head. “I’ll hold them for you. Of course.”

She hadn’t thought of it like that. She had just wanted him there. Kate ducked her head and pressed a hand into her eye, let out a breath. “Crawl inside when you’ve got our clothes.”

She turned and scrambled inside the tent, shivering as the wind ceased abruptly. The boys stirred when she got near, and Wyatt’s eyes opened. She cupped his head and he came crawling towards her, climbed into her lap.

“Hey,” she whispered, stroking his face. He put his mouth against her and she jumped, laughing softly as she realized that Castle didn’t quite need to hold these boys for her. 

And maybe that meant they shouldn’t be breastfeeding. If they could climb into her lap and get what they wanted? 

Kate grunted as his gums caught her, yelped when she felt a tooth. She flicked Wyatt’s cheek and then tugged his ear and he grunted back and squirmed closer. She couldn’t hold him like he wanted and he popped off her breast and whined at her.

Before she could soothe him, she felt the flap open at her back, the shiver of cooler air. Wyatt buried his face in her chest, hiding. She turned and saw Castle there, crawling through the tent. Even as ridiculous as it was, crawling into a tent, he looked impressive. Wide and strong.

“What are you-”

“I’m not holding him,” she said quickly. “But - um - think you’re right about weaning them. When they know what they want, seems kinda... weird.”

Castle lifted a brow, but he settled in behind her, adopting their usual position, and even though her cheeks were flushed, she leaned back against him. He cupped the side of her face and lightly kissed her neck, and she flushed deeper, a more permanent heat running through her blood.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered at her jaw. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I can learn. I’m learning, Kate, all the time.”

No kidding, he was learning.

Castle slid his arms around her and Wyatt as well, cradled the boy like a baby. But Wyatt wasn’t really a baby, was he? Over a year old now, and this had to stop.

She’d have to anyway. She would have to. Eight weeks from now-

“I’ll be good for them,” Castle murmured in her ear. His broad hand held Wyatt easily, and he brought his free hand up to stroke over the boy’s forehead. “I’ll learn, Kate, and I promise you - we’ll make this work. We already work so well together, don’t we? This will be one more thing we do.”

He was so seductive. Everything about him - his hands, his thighs under her, his broad chest over her, his eyes, his mouth - but especially his words.

She wanted so badly to believe him - and she hadn’t even realized until now that she had been all along.

\-----

Kate was falling asleep again. Even with James at her breast, she was dozing against Castle’s chest. James was the calm one, sweet and easy to handle, but after nursing this evening, Wyatt had settled down on Castle’s thigh and fallen asleep.

They were laidback babies, and she was lucky. They were taking it easy on her. 

Kate shifted to wake herself up and James smacked his lips around her, fell off her breast. She touched her thumb to his pursed lips and caught the milk at the corner of his mouth, lifted her hand rather unconsciously to taste it.

Castle caught her wrist, sucked her thumb into his mouth. She stiffened, heat flaming down her spine, the wet of his tongue licking down to the heel of her hand. Kate turned her head into him and pulled her thumb from his mouth to press her lips to his.

Kissing was easy; it pulled her away from everything else. She had her tongue stroking against his tongue, the rich taste of his mouth. The boy was heavy with sleep in her lap, and Castle shifted an arm to dust the tips of his fingers between her breasts on his way to her jaw.

She hummed into the contact, felt the slow drag of his fingers along her chin and down her throat. She swallowed, sucking in a breath of air against his lips, and he slanted his mouth at hers, new angle, new sensations.

Kate curled into his side, moving without conscious thought, and James let out a noise and shifted in her lap as her thighs widened.

“Oops, sorry, kid,” Castle murmured. “Here. Hang on a second, love.” He reached past her and scooped up James, the heat of their bodies suddenly abandoning her. She shivered and wished she’d put on some clothes, more than just white cotton underwear that really did nothing.

Castle laid James beside his brother - where they both liked to be so they could see each other - and then Castle came back to her, that sly grin on his face that reminded her of James. 

She opened her arms to him and slid closer, into his lap in the middle of the tent, and Castle chuckled, kissing her softly. His fingers played through her hair and down her back, and she shivered at the feel of those blunt ends just below her shoulders.

“You did a good job,” she murmured against his mouth.

“What?” He kissed her again, softer now at her jaw, below her ear. “Distracted by your breasts, love, what was that?”

She giggled, appalled at the sound even as it came out of her mouth, and of course Castle heard it, jerking his head up. 

“Did you just giggle?”

“Shut up.”

“You giggled like a girl.”

“I hate you,” she huffed - into his kiss as he took another. 

“Like a twenty-two year old girl,” he murmured, happily. His hands cupped her face and kissed her again. “It was a beautiful sound.”

She sighed and touched her lips to his, barely there, loving the way they haunted each other. He did. He haunted her.

“Boys are asleep,” she reminded him. Suggestive, rubbing the backs of her hands down his abs. “We could-”

“We could,” he hummed. “Want you on your back, baby.”

She grinned and he grinned too, and just like that, he was laying her down in the nest of blankets he’d thrown into the tent. She felt their clothes somewhere against her side, and she thought Castle was going to just - fall on her.

But he didn’t. He sat beside her hip and traced his fingers over her stomach, around her belly button, so that she was rippling with awareness. She caught his wrist, but she didn’t stop him, just circled lightly so that he kept going.

He danced his fingers up along her sternum, circled her left breast in a lazy loop. “Does it feel different?”

She blinked, hazy with awareness of him. “What?”

“After you nurse them, does it feel - empty?”

“Not empty,” she murmured. She bit her lip and palmed his thigh, shifted her hand into his groin. “When you come, does it feel empty?”

He sucked in a breath, laid his hand at her heart, palm to her skin. “Not exactly. Relief mostly. Like I’m washed clean.”

“Drained?”

He narrowed his eyes, but it was his thinking face, lips in a flat line and those creases at his temples as he tried to find words. “Content.”

She smiled. “That’s what it feels like,” she murmured. “You have good words.”

“You made me think,” he shrugged. His fingers curled at her clavicle and stroked. “Make me think about a lot of things.”

“Don’t wanna think too hard,” she said, stroking her hand up the inside of his forearm. “Do we?”

“I like thinking about you.”

She didn’t. She just wanted to feel.

Well, no, strike that. She wanted to feel him. Not herself, nothing about herself was worth feeling right now, nothing was-

“What do you think about?” he murmured. “When you go away from me.”

She shivered, gripping his elbow, suddenly so close to tears that she might actually cry right here. “Noth-nothing.”

“Nothing,” he echoed. “Or everything?”

“Everything,” she whispered.

Castle traced his fingers down her stomach and laid his palm flat again, warm, resting right above her damaged womb. His eyes were kind as he looked at her, but better than that, he wanted her. He just wanted. She was grateful for that.

He cupped her side and rubbed his thumb around her belly button. “It’s amazing to me, what you’ve done, baby. And that I get to - I don’t know - touch you. Be part of it somehow.”

Kate clenched her teeth, but it was impossible to defend herself against the slow, seductive brush of his thumb at her skin. She was shivering.

“I didn’t mean to ignore the boys,” he murmured.

Her eyes flared open. 

“I wasn’t really ignoring them,” he said, a frown creasing his face. “This is new for me too. But they were there. Here.”

Kate coasted her hand to his, twined their fingers together. Castle came down at her side, suddenly close, and warm, his body pressed to hers. He propped his head up on his hand, elbow close to her ear, and he leaned in, brushed his lips to her forehead.

She was frowning, she realized, and his mouth smoothed her skin. And her heart.

“Words,” she murmured.

“What?” He breathed close to her cheek and she shivered.

“Words, give me words for what you mean.”

“They’re there. Here.” He leaned in and kissed her temple. “Here. Do you feel them? You must.”

“Feel them?” she breathed. “In my head.”

His lips dusted her cheek and came down to her neck. She found his torso with the backs of her fingers and felt the brush of curly-soft hair down to his waistband. 

“Head. Heart,” he murmured. “That they’re here. I - if something had been wrong, it would have felt wrong.”

She blinked. “You do that with me?”

He caressed her jaw. “I do that with you.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. My brother has a better sense of things, people - he gets individual feelings, and they overwhelm him.”

“Do I overwhelm you? The boys?”

“No,” he said softly. His hand stopped at her shoulder, fiddled with her hair so that the ends brushed her lips. “No, it’s not like that. It’s like having your hand resting against me.”

She felt her mouth twitch; she coasted her fingers down to his groin, lightly over his cock. “Like this?”

He chuckled, but she heard the catch in his voice. “No, baby, not at all like that. That is much more amazing.”

“My hand resting against you.” She tucked a finger under his waistband, pulled a little. “How?”

“If I close my eyes, I know you’re here. Even if your body isn’t touching mine. Can’t you feel that?”

She watched his face, the eagerness to explain. He loved to talk, didn’t he? He loved to give reasons and put words out there and see what came back. She liked to listen.

“I can feel something,” she said. “Like - if you’re close enough, even if we’re not touching. I can feel - huh, I don’t know what it is.”

“It’s an extension of our senses, I think,” he murmured. “Colin says it is, anyway, and he’d know. Just - if your body can sense another body, then why can’t your spirit sense another spirit?”

“Is that what it is? My spirit. My soul?”

“I don’t know about soul. I just meant - the things we think about, the thoughts we have - those have to come from somewhere, right?”

“Electrical impulses.”

“Sure,” he shrugged. His fingers abandoned her hair to trail at her shoulder. “And our hearts have electrical impulses. It runs through our bodies, this low low wattage that keeps everything going. So maybe our senses have the ability to pick up on that electric field.”

“And that’s what happens with Colin? And you.”

“And the boys. James especially. But I’ve seen Wyatt tune in to his brother, and to you.”

“And you?”

“Mm, I don’t know,” he murmured. “But I have them. Never felt someone like that before, just Colin. Knowing my brother was there. Once when he was shot, bad, I felt it. And another time when he got a bad high-”

“He does a lot of drugs, I think,” she whispered. “Is he okay?”

“No,” Castle sighed. His eyes drooped at the corners when he was sad, when he was heavy-laden. “No, he’s not okay. But he’s surviving.”

“Is James going to be like that?”

“I don’t know,” Castle admitted. “I hope not.”

She sucked in a tight breath, her throat closing up.

“But,” Castle said softly, “he has you, and you love him, and he knows that. And he has his brother. And me. I - I love him too, Kate. Colin never had that.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek and tried to take a deeper breath. She didn’t know if any of that was any good against - against whatever this was. “He had you,” she gritted out. “You love Colin, you love your brother. So-”

“But all we had was John Black. That overwhelming... and then me, Alex, and Ben - our terror. Colin was awash in it from day one.”

“God,” she whispered.

“The drugs keep him stable. Numb him enough to regain his sense of - self. Identity. Which, yes, is pretty screwed up, but it’s all he’s got.”

“That why he disappears on us?”

“Um.” Castle flushed and dipped his head, his lips skimming her breast in an entirely - she thought - mindless way. Kissing because her skin was there, kissing because it gave him something to do rather than answer her.

She reached up and gripped the back of his neck, angled him upwards. “Castle?”

“He never had trouble with me before,” he muttered. “I’ve always been - I’m a machine. I don’t feel things. It’s all smooth sailing, you know? And now it’s not.”

Kate blinked. Her fingers were cramped at the back of his neck. “It’s not smooth?”

“No, honey.” His head lifted and she saw it. Saw it in his eyes. I’m in love with you. “No, it’s not smooth. You make me feel things, make me want things. Thinking about you all the time, thinking about the boys. Pretty rough waters now, inside my head.”

She couldn’t help laughing, the look on his face, his earnestness in comparison to the crazy thing they were talking about. Like it was normal.

But she felt them too. She felt - she felt something. She felt him. As he’d said, a hand on her, the touch of him. “You ever get used to it?” she said quickly. “Their hands on you. Mine.”

“Never gonna get used to your hand on me, sweetheart.”

She flicked a smile his way, just for that. “Your metaphor, babe.”

He grinned back, and she flushed as she realized what she’d said. She moved to hit him and he caught her wrist, kissed her fingers. “Yeah, I get used to it. Colin maybe can’t, but with this - low-frequency stuff? It’s comforting to know you’re there. To feel you, the boys. I’m not sure what I’d do if I didn’t have that feeling.”

“But you never had it before - days ago, Castle.”

He looked so troubled. His eyes swam with something she didn’t understand at first - and then realized was fear. “I know,” he husked. “What I was before you makes me-” He trembled and laid his body down right over her, pressing her flat, his chest to her breasts, his mouth against her lips.

His hips were grinding her into the earth, but she didn’t care at all. She loved the feeling of him over her, and more, she loved thinking he needed her for something.

“I don’t want to be that again,” he whispered. “Don’t make me go back.”

She wrapped her arm around his head, untangled her other arm from between them, gripped him tight. “Okay, it’s okay. You’re not going back. We won’t go back.” She pressed her mouth to his cheek. “Rick? Baby, none of us are going anywhere.”

She even believed it.

\-----

Castle sighed and shifted them both, curling into her back and wrapping his arms around her torso. She pillowed her head on his bicep and he drew his forearm around her neck, his other arm between her breasts and keeping her snug to him. Whatever that had been, that surge of helplessness, she didn't seem to mind his needing her.

She had seemed very okay with it, actually.

One of her legs shifted back and he found his thigh between hers, the fit natural, like sliding into place. She hummed something low and nuzzled down into him, and he thought she would fall asleep. Might be for the best; he wasn't sure what a conversation like that did to her, what it took from her to look at the future honestly.

They were both mostly unclothed, but the tent kept in their heat and she didn't have goose bumps. Plus, he didn't always feel the cold, so if it was, he wouldn't necessarily know. She nudged backwards into him and her shoulder dropped, and he thought she was warm enough with him. But just in case, he skimmed the blanket up over their legs.

She hummed again and then there was a long, long silence.

He really had thought she'd fallen asleep when she snaked her arm out and touched Wyatt's cheek. The boy's lips were parted with sleep, rosebud of a mouth, and her fingers were light across his skin, barely skimming. Castle stayed still and watched the caress move up along the side of the boy's face and to his forehead. Kate brushed the hair out of his eyes and then combed it back, rhythmically, soothingly, and Wyatt seemed to sink into deeper and deeper sleep.

And then her voice, quiet but strong, rose up to him. "He looks like you."

How that filled him up, that she thought this boy she comforted, she loved, looked like him. "Yeah?"

"I always saw myself in them," she murmured. "Didn't - want to see anyone else."

"No," he croaked.

"But I couldn't ignore - all the ways they're not like me," she whispered. "I used to wonder - who." She swallowed hard and he felt her huddling in, as if to protect herself. "When they were newborns, they looked exactly alike, like every other baby ever born, I guess. So how could I know who-?"

"No, I know," he husked, his throat closing up.

Kate jerked her hand away from Wyatt and pressed her fingers over her eyes. Her voice choked up. "I was afraid they were his.”

“Oh, God.”

Kate let out a noise, terrible grief, and Castle pulled her up into him, his heart pounding like he was running for his life, for theirs. 

She sobbed against his neck, and Castle gripped her harder, a hand cupping the back of her skull. “Oh, God, Kate. It’s not - it didn’t happen. It’s not - they’re not - they’re mine. They’re mine, Kate-”

She sucked in a harsh breath and jerked away from him, but only far enough that she could swipe at her eyes. “No, I know,” she said roughly. “I’m just - it’s kind of coming out of me.”

He stroked his fingers through her hair and combed it behind her ears, kissed her forehead, her eyelids. “It’s okay. Kate, those boys are just fine. They’re good boys.”

She let out a long, juddering breath. “I know,” she rasped. “They just - could’ve gone either way. They were just - tiny, so small, and their faces were scrunched up and ugly and mashed in and I just-”

“It’s okay now-”

“I just wanted them,” she got out. The breath seemed to leave her and she crumpled into the blankets, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Even if they were his. Even his boys-”

“They’re not,” Castle growled. “They’re mine.”

Kate shuddered and curled her fingers into her palms, her eyes clear. “You’re his,” she whispered.

His heart froze. Castle closed his eyes. Wondered if his heart would beat again. Wondered why he couldn’t let go of her.

After a moment, he felt her hand against his jaw, warm. And then her lips brushed his chin. “I used to have nightmares where his son came and...”

He opened his eyes, heart heavy as stone. “Took them from you?”

“No,” she whispered. “Came and - and watched.”

His mouth dropped open.

She worked her jaw, frowning fiercely, but her fingers were paused against his chin. “Black called James his true grandson, and I tried to see what it was in him that he liked so much, but I just... it wasn’t there. I couldn’t see it.”

“No,” Castle said, catching her hand against his face. “It’s not there.”

"I always saw myself in them," she murmured, turning her head a little to look at the boys. "But those blue eyes of theirs, I knew that wasn’t me. It’s - their daddy's eyes."

He took in a rough breath. Could she not feel how his heart pounded to hear her give them over, to give him a claim?

"Hard to miss those eyes. And then it was easy to imagine what you looked like, what you might say, what - if you even knew or cared." She paused, her fingers hovering over his lips. "But I never expected - you."

Castle wrapped his arm around her torso, took a deep breath with his nose buried in her hair. He hoped he was a good thing, hoped he was exceeding expectations all the way around.

"I can see you in Wyatt," she said, her lips nudging his. "And more now, more and more. He smiles like you, so often smiling; he finds everything easy."

"And James," he got out, burying his mouth in her shoulder when his voice cracked. "James is like you."

"Yeah," she sighed. 

Castle lifted his head to look at her, those dark eyes that neither boy had inherited. But. "His hair is yours, dark and full. He's the bigger of the two but his face - you can see where his chin narrows like yours, and his cheeks..."

She frowned, working her bottom lip.

"Poor kid," he murmured. "He'll be a beautiful boy."

Kate gave a shiver of a laugh; he felt it against him where she was pressed. She was so very close to him, and her breath caressed his cheek as she kissed him. "You're very smooth."

"Maybe once," he sighed. "Not anymore."

Kate slowly turned over, taking his arm with hers so he was wrapped around her again. She touched her lips to the top of his knuckles and he let out a breath, relieved, pressing his chest to her back. Her bare skin was heated and he still felt the damp of her tears where she laid her head on his bicep.

He kissed that spot behind her ear that always made her shudder, and this time she let out a little gasp, her body bumping his.

Castle nuzzled in against her neck. “There’s nothing in James that’s like him, Kate. I promise. I promise you, he won’t be anything like John Black.”

She spoke against his bicep, her shoulders hunched. "I don't want James to suffer for this."

Castle sighed. "Well. He'll suffer no more than any other human being does, law of averages."

She shivered again, but not with laughter. "I don't want him growing up... awash in terror."

His own words coming back to him, that he'd spoken about Colin. "I don't either," he said firmly, nudging his nose down against her neck. He kissed her softly. "He won't. He’ll be nothing like Black, nothing. He'll grow up with us."

Kate went still. Castle plowed on, not entirely heedless of her, but probably rather reckless. But she had to know - she had to know that the future wasn’t bleak for these boys. Not anymore.

"We love him," he murmured. We love each other. "And Black is dead; he can't get to them. He can’t influence them. James will know love, not terror. He'll know us. Look at him, Kate. Look how he's survived so far, protecting his brother, sticking to Wyatt’s side, and also - to yours. Soaking up everything he could from you in the time you were given. It's made him strong, and fearless-” He kissed her ear, sloppy, so she squirmed. “And damn stubborn."

She choked out a breath that he thought might have been an involuntary laugh. But she needed to hear this, she had to hear this, the truth for once. 

"And Wyatt, how smart he is, how he figured out exactly what to do to keep you. How to manipulate the system that was stacked against him just to get what he wanted - you. He is like his daddy, because I'd do the same. I'm doing the same, Kate. I'm keeping you."

Kate froze for an instant, and then she turned in his arms, lying on her back to actually look at him. Her eyes were in deep darkness inside the tent, and maybe that was why; she touched the side of his face, caressed his bottom lip with her thumb.

“I didn’t expect you,” she murmured. “I never could have dreamed...” 

He was surprised by her honesty for only a moment, and then he threaded both arms around her in a tight, unforgiving embrace, drawing her up into his body.

He wouldn't let go.

\-----

“Kate.”

Heavy.

Her name came again. 

“Kate.”

She opened her eyes and found only darkness, textured darkness, the kind of richness that meant otherness.

“Kate, honey, you might want to get dressed before Col gets back.”

A tent. Blankets. “Castle.”

“Yeah, hey, there, love. You were really out, huh?”

“Tired,” she mumbled.

“Think it’s the nursing,” he murmured against her temple. His kiss was cool and light. “Still trying to find that balance.”

“Yeah,” she said, trying to push herself off the floor of the tent. 

“Hey, you didn’t finish the Pedialyte. That’s part of it.” She could see him shaking the bottle in the darkness. Or she could hear it. 

“Sorry.” She reached out and it came to her hand immediately. Kate sighed and flipped the lid, like the lid on a coffee creamer (weird to think of coffee now, how she craved it suddenly after three years of nothing). 

“Good girl,” he murmured.

She slapped her free hand out at him, struck something, but he only chuckled. She swigged the rest of the Pedialyte, chagrinned to realize there was a lot more left in the bottle than she’d intended when she’d quit.

“Here,” he said softly. “ETA in about ten, so you might want these.”

Her clothes. She chugged the last of the nasty pedialyte and took her clothes, the sports bra and shirt, the comfortable leggings. She let out a slow breath, wishing suddenly for something else, something different. Something she had picked out.

But she pulled the neon pink sports bra over her head, electric even in the dark, and winced as her muscles stretched. She jumped when a kiss landed on her neck, laughed softly and lifted a hand to the back of his head, scrunching his hair. Castle licked her skin under her ear and she shivered, trying hard not to giggle. He’d found her out, that spot, and he was exploiting it.

“Stop, stop,” she breathed, turning her head to catch his mouth. He kissed her, his tongue stroking surely inside her mouth. She felt full, some strange sensation of - of calm. Calm filling her.

“Stop?” he whispered back. Nuzzled her neck. His fingers dragged along her shoulders. “Or not stop?”

“I...” She hummed, eyes sliding closed as his fingers stroked the edges of her sports bra. “What are you doing?”

“Saying thank you, love,” he murmured. His lips traced her ear, hovering, warm breath falling over her. “Thank you for giving me - those words. And then falling asleep in my arms.”

She flushed, opened her eyes. But she didn’t know what to say about any of that, about the horror and the fear and all the things she never thought she’d actually say to anyone.

Except, apparently, the boys’ father.

“Thank you, Kate,” he whispered.

James and Wyatt’s father, his mouth on her neck, the back of her ear. 

“Thank you for giving me - all of this, allowing me - to touch you. To hold the boys as you nurse.”

Rick Castle. His hands cupping her breasts and breathing hard at the back of her neck and making her body come alive, her heart-

“Thank you. Love. Thank you.”

Her heart was thundering. She turned her mouth to meet his and caught his head in her hands and held him to her, held him there, close.

\-----

She was the one to stop them, laughing into his mouth and squeezing his hands, pressing them down against his thighs. “You said - you said ten,” she panted, laughing again. “Ten minutes.”

Castle groaned and dropped his face into her neck. He loved her, he was crazy about her. He wanted only to touch her breasts and her hips, paint his tongue along her throat. “I said that?”

“Remember Colin? Your brother?”

Her body was hot in his lap, hot and wonderful and strong, and he could feel her heart beating against his chest and at his wrist where he’d strapped on the watch. His shirt was rucked up and she’d disheveled his jockeys - holy hell, had she ever - but he could feel her.

He could feel her. That was the important part. She’d slept hard for a few hours, but she’d finished off two bottles of pedialyte today and now she was this writhing goddess in his lap.

Castle rubbed her back and finally pulled the shirt down, tugged it to her thighs. “My brother. Right.”

She cupped his face and kissed him, soft and sweet. “Come on, babe. I wanna be on my feet when Col gets here.”

He wrapped an arm around her and pressed his cheek into hers. “Thank you.”

“No more of that,” she murmured.

He huffed and smacked a kiss against her cheek, shifted her off his lap. “I meant for stopping me before I had my cock out and my come painting my chest. No brother should see that.”

Kate laughed, a kind of interesting catch to her breath that made him wish like hell he could see her eyes, every nuance of her face in the dim light.

“No boys should see that either,” she told him, her voice further away. And then he saw the rectangle of deep golden light as the zipper came down, the tent opening to the late afternoon sun. It burnished her hair and limned her cheeks, and Castle couldn’t help reaching out a hand and catching the ends of her hair.

Her head turned and her lashes blinked, and it looked like golden tears down her face, all that sunlight and beauty.

“Kate.”

“Don’t,” she said, catching his hand. Squeezing. And then she crawled out of the tent. Castle let out a breath and then glanced back at the boys. Honestly, they’d been stirring here and there during their impromptu makeout session, and he figured he should wake them now, let them sleep in the car instead.

“James,” he called softly, beginning to dismantle the tent. It was easy, poles and cross-pieces, and he collapsed one side before James could lift his head. “Wyatt. Come on, guys. Time to get up. Let’s chase Mommy.”

He collapsed the other side and James laughed, catching both of them by surprise. Now he could see Kate up by the foundation, repacking the bag. Eating something, which heartened him.

“Mama.”

Castle snapped his head back to the boys, but he had no idea which one had spoken. Had called her name. “James? Wyatt? Did you say mommy?”

The boys looked at him, and then Wyatt got to his feet and ran off, only to trip in the material of the tent and go down, tumbling as he did, skidding down the side of the rise. James gasped, even as Castle scrambled after Wyatt, but Kate had turned, Kate was rushing back to the boy and curling her body over his, gathering him.

Castle reached them, certain Wyatt was fine if shaken, betrayed by his own feet and the environment around him. When he squatted down beside them, Kate was kissing Wyatt’s cheeks and giggling him, his body squirming against hers, perfectly fine. James came up behind Castle and clung to Kate’s knee, trying to get in on it too.

Kate lifted her head and her smile was so bright, so wide, that it caught like a burr in Castle’s chest. Tore open his heart.

“Mama.”

Her face blanked. Her eyes dropped to the boys. Castle held his breath, not sure it had been so smart to teach them the sounds for that.

Her arm clenched around Wyatt; she lifted a hand to cup James’s cheek. “Castle.”

He winced and looked at her.

“Castle?”

“I - don’t know which one said it. But they both have...”

Aw, shit. She was crying.

\-----

She couldn’t stop. She wasn’t crying, she was just - tears kept leaking out of her eyes. No matter how much she swiped at her cheeks and lifted the collar of her shirt to soak it up, it didn’t make a difference.

James butted his head into her thigh and she sank back on her ass, unable to catch her balance. Castle was hovering, and his brother would be here any moment, and she couldn’t do this.

She wasn’t-

“Mama.” James? James grunting at her and trying to crawl into her lap, displace Wyatt, and now Castle was trying to pull them off of her, but it was worse, it was worse, them being taken out of her arms-

“No!”

Castle backed off, hands raised, eyes wide, and she realized she’d screamed. Been screaming. James and Wyatt both had round eyes, and then Wyatt’s mouth turned down and he began to cry.

She had never heard him cry. She had never-

Kate wrapped her arms around him and smothered him against her chest, her knees bracing his back because she couldn’t hold him. She couldn’t hold them, she wasn’t-

“Mama,” James said, urgently now, insistent.

She tried to quiet Wyatt, who was still crying, though it seemed more melodramatic and feelings-hurt than real fear. Castle came slowly towards her, and she watched him warily, her breath catching in her throat. He picked up James and the boy grunted at him, twisted in his arms.

“Hush,” Castle said shortly. “I’m bringing you to her.” Mama.

She stared at him, overwhelmed, absolutely unable to handle this, but Castle just sat down right beside her, both of them in the too-tall grass beside the foundation her father had poured for his dreams.

“Kate?” He put a hand on her shoulder and she gulped a breath that seemed more sob than air. “All you have to do is sit here with us. That’s all.”

She gulped again and everything wavered in her throat. She was either going to be sick or she was going to sob, and of the two, she’d rather vomit.

But she’d just drunk a whole bottle of pedialyte and she was supposed to keep it down.

“You got it,” Castle murmured. “You got this, Kate.”

She lifted her head and saw the foundation, concrete and wood to hold it in place as it set. Long dry now, and weeds growing up, though she could see the path Colin had cut back when he’d come up here before them.

If she turned around, she would see her parents’ graves. Overlooking them.

She sucked in a ragged breath. Wyatt gripped her hair at her neck, pressing himself into her. Her arms were weak, but she kept her knees up at his back, and his arms were strong, hanging on to her neck, and she was shaking.

“You got this, Kate,” Castle whispered. His hand slid across her shoulders and his arm embraced her. But she stayed rigid, trying to keep Wyatt up against her.

James’s fingers came to her hair, tangled at her ear. His body was leaning out from Castle’s arms, and he put his mouth against her cheek.

She shivered.

She was crying again, tears sliding down her cheeks, and it started Wyatt crying too, whining against her neck, but with James added to the mix, half in Castle’s lap and half in hers. James trying to get inside the shelter of her arms, but she couldn’t hold on to them. She wasn’t a parent; she couldn’t be a parent. She was no one’s-

“Mama,” Wyatt whimpered.

“Mama,” James echoed, smearing his kiss across her cheek.

“Okay,” she croaked. Her hand trembled as she caught the side of James’s head, pressed him against her. “Okay.” Stronger now, one arm curled around Wyatt as he whined in her neck.

“Hey, ease up on your - on her,” Castle whispered. “Come on, Jay. You know better. Wyatt, no need to cry.”

Kate gulped at the air and tilted her head back to get a clearer breath, but the back of her head hit Castle’s arm where he held her. She turned and looked at him, and God, he looked so scared for her.

“I’m okay,” she rasped. “I’m okay.”

“I know you are.” His arm tightened and then fell away from her and she sat up straighter. Castle reached across and took Wyatt from her, one clean pluck from her arms, and Wyatt huddled into his shoulder. “I woke them up. My fault. They don’t like to be pulled from sleep.”

“And who would?” Kate said. Out of her mouth before she realized she even had it in her.

“No one,” Castle said, shaking his head as he released James to her. “No one likes getting woken up. It was so mean of me, I know.”

James caught her cheeks with his hands, his eyes comically wide and serious. She let out a breath and ducked her head in and kissed him. He squirmed and gripped her ears, nearly laughing, so close to laughing, and then he hummed against her cheek.

Mamamama-

“You taught them this,” she said, turning her head. She had to untangle James’s fingers from her ear, her hair, and she looked at Castle. “You’ve been calling me-” She bit her lip, trying to figure out what happened next.

“I...”

“I’m not sure how to do that,” she said.

“You’re doing it,” he answered, shrugging. “Have been. I only - called it like it is, Kate.”

She averted her eyes, slow breaths, counting down. Black used to stand just inside her room and say nothing, watch her, just saying nothing, and sometimes she’d be in soft restraints and unable to do anything at all, and sometimes she’d be free.

But she still couldn’t do anything.

Nothing but count down. Count.

Get to zero, count up again.

“Kate, honey, stay.”

She startled, eyes coming back to him.

His hand cupped her face; his eyes were kind. “All you have to do is right now. All we have to do is-”

“What the hell are you fucking idiots doing? Rolling in the grass?”

Kate jerked and saw Colin standing just past the foundation, hands on his hips, squinting into the sun. Grimacing all around.

Kate laughed, surprised out of herself, shocking everyone with the sound of it, so that James laughed back, and then Wyatt, and then Castle was grinning.

“Well, enough rolling in the grass, huh? Want to say one last good-bye, Kate?”

“No.” She pushed James into Castle’s lap and struggled to stand. “No, I’m not saying good-bye. It’s time to go.”

\-----

Colin cornered him at the tent where he was trying to repack the poles and also keep the boys away from Kate long enough to give her a chance to recover. Colin didn't look interested in recovery, but he did pitch in, holding the bag so Castle could jab poles inside.

"What'd you do to her?" he said without preamble.

Castle glanced up, flushing hot when he jabbed a pole into the ground, missing the sleeve. "Nothing."

"She was near-catatonic when I pulled up."

"Shit, Col. She's been through some stuff."

"No fucking kidding. But you don't gotta force it."

"What am I forcing?" he grunted. But the pole jabbed the earth again.

Colin reached over and took it from his hands with a snort. "This for one. And her. I don't know what that was about, but you had her cornered. You know what that feels like?"

Castle rubbed his hands down his face and found himself staring at the boys - or their lumps under the tent. They were playing in the material, their heads poking up as they crawled around in hiding, giggling. "I know what it feels like," he said finally.

Cornered.

"I'm not saying don't," Colin told him, expertly sliding the poles inside the sleeve. "I'm saying - here's what the fuck was going on in her head when I got here. Loud enough to drown out the world. Which was nice in its own way. Never thought about having someone who screamed so loud the rest of the world was nothing."

"Screamed," he echoed, his heart tripping. "You never - we haven't really talked about this in depth. Not like this. You're... better?"

"No. I don't know. Screaming, you know? That's still there."

"People scream in your head?" Castle asked. Why had he never asked? It hadn't been his to deal with and Colin dealt with it as he saw fit. So. No need to ask. He was that much of a self-centered asshole. "Colin. People are screaming in your head."

"Well."

Castle grunted. "Seriously."

"She is anyway."

"Still?" he croaked, eyes snapping to Kate. She had found her sweatshirt, pulled it on. She looked like she was drowning in it. Drinking her bottle of pedialyte like a good girl, her chin on her knees, arrested in the middle of packing the bag again.

"Not right now," Colin said quietly. "It fell away. It's waves of things, Castle. I never had to find words for it quite like this, but that's what it is. A wave that hits you. Currents in the ocean."

"Oh." He turned to look at his brother, saw past him to the boys giggling under the tent material. "Currents."

"If I'm standing in the right place, I'll get swept out." Colin reached out and tugged on the tent, and James's head came into view. The boy gave a sly grin and dived back under the tent. "Shit, you'll never get work done again, big brother. These two are a mess."

"Yeah," he answered. Swept out. "Is Kate getting swept out?"

"No, man. I don't know what she feels. You gotta ask her."

"You know something." Castle began folding the end of the tent, regardless of the boys, slowly pulling it off of them as he did. "You feel something of what she-"

"Well, don't you?" Colin snarled. "I'm not your therapist, Richard. You figure it out. What you feel from her and what you feel for yourself, fucking hell. I've spent the last thirty years of my fucking life trying find that damn line. You think I can find it for you?"

Castle swallowed. What he felt for himself, what he felt from her. Sitting beside her and that overwhelming paralysis, that panic clutching his throat - that had been from Kate.

Fucking hell, he wasn't like Colin, he didn't get the full wave - he was only getting impressions of her. And if that was only a percentage of what she was dealing with-

"You're messing it all up," Colin growled. "Give it here." He snatched the tent out of Castle's hands and then waved to the boys. "Take them. They're in the way."

"Don't fucking-"

"Fuck off, Castle." Colin's eyes glittered, dangerous. Dangerous today. Castle hadn't been paying strict attention; he knew better. His brother was doing what he could do to warn him -this is not the day.

"James," Castle said sharply. "Wyatt." James had already stopped giggling, long stopped, if Castle had been paying attention to that too. James got to his feet and gave Colin a wide berth - Colin sneered at the boy but did nothing - and Castle reached past the tent material and snatched Wyatt with one hand, up against his chest so that the kid giggled.

Wyatt had no idea. James must have some. Impression or something.

"Let's find Mama," he murmured, instinct, automatic, and no fucking wonder she was screaming in Colin's head. No wonder she was drowning.

He was pushing too hard. He had to stop.

Castle scooped up James and held both boys in his arms, moved away from his dangerous brother. As he walked away, he worked hard to quiet himself, his voice, whatever it might be doing in Col's head. Quiet himself. 

Already James was relaxing, the boy's body growing loose in Castle's arms.

"All right, okay," he whispered. "Let's find - Kate." 

Wyatt squirmed and whined against Castle's shoulder, as if in protest.

"Yeah, me too," Castle croaked. Didn't feel right at all not calling her mom. Like taking them away from her.

And that - that - had definitely made her scream.

\-----

"Is he okay?" Kate said quietly. She was holding only a folded blanket - all she could carry - and Castle was adjusting the straps on Wyatt's car seat. 

"Wyatt?"

"Colin," she hissed, stepping into him. "Your brother. He's not..."

"Yeah," Castle muttered. "He's not. He's in a dangerous mood, Kate. Just steer clear of him and it'll settle."

"I'm not very good at steering clear," she muttered, moving past him to crawl into the back seat. 

She brushed her fingers over Wyatt's head and sat down behind James, leaned over to see him. He gave her a shy smile and ducked his head into the side of the seat, arms raising to her. "Mama," he mumbled, smiling again.

She counted to five before she could smile back at him. "Hey, James." Give me a break, kid. But she didn't say that, she just pressed his palm against her lips for a kiss and then sank back down to the seat, releasing him entirely.

When she was settled, Castle crawled in after her, slamming the door shut. 

"He's okay to drive?" she asked, fingers smoothing the blanket over her lap. It had to be nearly eighty degrees even this far into evening, and yet she was freezing. 

"He'll be better after he drives," Castle nodded. "Actually he told me today - for the first time in our lives, I asked what it felt like. I don't know why I never have before."

"And?"

"In the ocean and getting caught by the rip tide."

"Oh." She unfolded the blanket and lurched as the car started forward. Kate clung to the headrest of the seat in front of her, vaguely realized she felt the impression of James ahead of her. How she knew he was there even though she couldn't see him.

Well, now she saw his arm waving. Holy shit. She gasped, sitting up straighter. "He's waving. James. Are you waving good-bye?"

Castle sat up as well, draping his arms over the seat and getting Wyatt's attention. "Hey, Wyatt, look. James is waving. Can you wave?"

She watched Wyatt give Castle a puzzled look, hid her laugh against the seat. "You don't have to. But look. Like this." She modeled the wave but James grabbed at her hand, smacking his mouth against her knuckles and grumbling something. She teased his chin and cheeks until he let go and when she turned, Wyatt was waving half-heartedly.

Kate laughed. 

Castle beamed at her. "They're smart, aren't they?"

"They are," she smiled back. They were smart kids; they caught on very fast. And how long had Castle been teaching them sounds? Barely any time at all. Seemed impossible, but maybe they'd already been having... lessons? "Did those files we brought out with us - did it say what they did first? I mean, their firsts, like - like a baby book would?"

Castle's smile dropped of his face. "You mean... when they first smiled and first haircut and tooth and-"

Her heart dropped like a stone. "First word," she breathed. 

"Oh, we know that one," Castle said, overly bright. "It's mama."

Her cheeks flushed and Wyatt gave a cackling laugh, threw his arms up in the air. Castle, distracted by the boy, didn't seem to notice how hot her face was, and she hoped the damn monitor watch didn't give her away.

She was their first word.

"Hey, here's your bunny, kid. Calm down."

She glanced over to where Castle was teasing Wyatt with the stuffed rabbit, ears flopping in the boy's face so that he giggled and squealed, grabbing for it. She realized James was awfully quiet and shifted in the seat so she could see his face. The red-streaked sky beyond the window cast his face in a strange light, and he was holding on to his rag doll, pressed up close to his face with his thumb in his mouth, his other hand tucked up by his head and twirling in his own hair. 

She didn't know when he had first smiled, but she knew when he had first smiled at her. She didn't know when the boys had first started to walk, but she remembered the day she had first caught a glimpse of them down the hall, being led by the hands, James almost running while Wyatt was more careful.

She had those firsts, and that was all that mattered.

Kate leaned in over the baby's seat and kissed James's forehead, and then his cheeks, and then his mouth - around his thumb and rag doll. He let a happy grunt and grabbed for her hair and she let him, pressing her cheek to his, hard enough for him to feel it.

And then she untangled his fingers and sank back in the seat, letting out a long breath. Castle was already settled, having released the bunny to Wyatt, and he gave her a tentative smile. Though he sat on his side of the bench seat, his body was broad enough that it just seemed encouraging. Like his chest and shoulders were an invitation.

She stopped pretending she didn't want to heed it, and she ignored the seat belt, and she just laid her head down on his lap.

Castle let out a breath and touched his hand to the top of her head, combed down through her hair. "Kate?"

"Yeah."

"What did you mean by firsts if not... that?"

She pressed her fingers into his thigh and nudged herself back into the seat. "Teaching them to wave, to talk - that wasn't allowed. I just wondered who might have - if someone had and when and what they were taught, where they are now - how far along are they?"

"They boys."

"Yeah."

"It might be in their files, yeah. That would be the kind of thing he'd keep track of, for sure. Leave no variable unknown." Castle's fingers stroked down to her neck and stayed, warming her blood where it passed so close under her skin. She felt drowsy.

"I'd like to read it," she said then. "Their files. My file. I want to know what he did."

His hand twitched on her neck. "I... are you sure you want to-"

"I'm sure. I have to know. Everything that happened. Every damn test that he did."

"Oh."

"And what he did to those boys."

"The files are massive, Kate. It'd take-"

"Weeks?" she interrupted. She lifted up from his thigh and gave him a long look. She didn't know why he was pushing against her so hard. "I've got eight weeks, Castle. Nothing else to do. Keep me from jumping you."

He gave a strangled laugh and rubbed at his jaw. "Right. Well. After you read some of this, I'm not sure you'll ever let anyone touch you again."

\-----


	16. Chapter 16

After he had promised to find her a laptop and get her access to those files, Kate had finally laid her head back down on his thigh and fallen asleep.

Castle did not want her reading those files. Screaming in her head? Drowning in her head? Yeah, that wasn't going to get any better with knowledge.

"Knowledge is power," Colin spoke up from the driver's seat.

Castle was used to it by now, the way Colin picked up on the impression of his feelings and correctly divined Castle's thoughts from it. Colin hadn't actually heard him thinking it, but he knew Castle well enough to say something about the state of Castle's emotions.

"Yeah, I know," he said finally. Kate twitched on his lap but didn't wake. "But you know what's in there."

"I can hazard a guess."

"Well, that-" Castle sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. The things John Black had done in the name of the perfect soldier. The things he'd done to her. This girl asleep on his lap. "That and the medical stuff, Col."

"Oh. Yeah, I - still. I'd want to know. I'd want to know every last fucking thing his cronies did to me. I still want to know."

"Alex told me once that he lost count of the surgeries he's had."

Colin muttered something from the front seat, but the sound of car speeding on the highway drowned him out. Castle didn't chase it down; he just sank his head back against the seat and breathed out slowly.

Surgeries. Five pregnancies, three of which had spontaneously miscarried - though Kate had said absolutely nothing about those and he had a feeling she just didn't know. She'd said they didn't tell her things; she'd said it was bad.

And the way she'd grieved over the abortion - it made him think she might have said something to him. If she'd known.

When she did know, when she found out, it was going to be bad. That shut-down thing she did, where she zoned out and he couldn't reach her...

"How do you do it?" he asked suddenly, throat working hard against the angle of his tilted back head. "How do you find the one you want and - and listen in?"

"Listen in."

"To us," he rasped. He was feeling maudlin; his eyes burned and he had to blink fast and lift his head. He could see Colin's eyes in the rearview mirror, studying him. Castle rubbed his hand down his face. "How'd you get better at it?"

"Practice. Meditation. Prayer. Close your eyes, be aware of your body and then aware of the bodies brushing against yours."

Bodies. Presence - the presence of them. "An ocean?"

"Yeah. Not other swimmers, no, all of you the water. You are the ocean, and so are they. Currents mix. Cold water and warm. Tides and creatures-"

"Okay. Brushing against me," he mumbled, closing his eyes again.

He could feel the road. The tires against the road, the steady and irregular beat of pavement against the rubber. The discordant note when Colin steered too close to the yellow line, as he liked to do. He could feel the heavy weight of his head on the back of the seat, and in contrast, the weight of hers resting at his thigh.

His hand in her hair and pinky finger laid at her neck just below her ear. 

He had her body very clearly. But feelings, emotions, impressions - that didn't eddy his way. 

Vaguely the boys. But they themselves were vague with their feelings - unless they weren't happy. He couldn't-

Oh.

Oh, he could. Wyatt, closer to him, felt like a kind of low-wattage electricity. The kind that raced across your skin and irritated your teeth. And then James was steady, steady, a hum of white noise that never faltered, and would never plummet, never crest. Not still but definitely firm, sameness like a solid wall to lean against.

Huh. And Kate?

She was there. She was - all around him. She wasn't just the heat and weight against him, she was - heat and weight everywhere. She was the ocean and he was the lone swimmer who'd gone out too far.

The force of her could carry him away.

He wondered how Kate felt to James; he wondered if the little boy felt it like this, like Kate was the whole world and the stars in the sky.

He must; it seemed impossible that she was anything else.

\-----

Kate shifted, grunting when her neck stiffened up. She groaned and tried to sit up, realized the car had slowed. “Where are we?”

“Nowhere close,” Castle chuckled. “You hungry? We’re getting off the interstate.”

Her stomach growled and she leaned back against the seat. “Yeah, actually.” She took a breath and pulled her knees up, rolling her head on her neck. 

“What do you want?”

Kate blanked.

“Hey, chow time,” Colin called from the front. “Oh, whoops. I woke ‘em. Sorry.”

She could hear Wyatt fussing from his seat, but low key, not unhappy. She didn’t know if James cared, but it had to be late, and nursing while the car was in motion didn’t seem a good idea-

“Kate? Where do you want to eat?”

She glanced out the window and saw the miles of brightly glowing signs, arches and crowns and billboards, neon fast food in a glare. 

His hand came to her thigh, thumb rubbing over the cotton of her leggings. “Kate?”

“I... what do you think the boys might eat?” she asked, tearing her gaze away from the smear of lights.

Castle released her knee and touched her hair; it made her shiver, but she suppressed the urge to duck her head away from him. 

He brushed his fingers down her arm. “I don’t know. They could probably eat something of whatever we wind up with. Not a problem.” He leaned in close, his mouth at her ear. “Did you want to nurse? Can you?”

“Mm, I don’t think I have enough,” she admitted. “Probably before we put them to bed for the night. Wherever that is. But not right now.”

“All right, so pick something, Kate. Colin and I like just about anything. Your choice.”

She pressed her lips together and refused to look out the window; that would only make it worse. Instead, she folded her hands in her lap and gave herself a five-count. 

His hands cupped her face and she gasped, eyes startling to his.

“Burger,” he said slowly. “Or sandwiches. Which one?”

Kate blinked. “Fries.”

Castle grinned at her, thumbs brushing over her cheeks. Her whole head was being held by his hands. “French fries?”

She shivered. “Yeah.”

“And?”

“And... don’t push me, Castle.”

He chuckled and leaned in, pressing his lips to hers. “Just pushing a little, honey. French fries. Boys will like that.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, feeling his fingers in her hair, across her chin and cheeks. She pitched forward into him, wrapping an arm around his neck, not even sure why just that his warm body pressed to hers was such a huge relief.

“French fries and ketchup. Honey mustard?”

“Ketchup,” she mumbled at his shoulder.

His arm tightened around her back. “Hamburger?”

“Cheeseburger,” she whispered.

“Oh, yeah?”

“You?”

His thumb danced down her back, over each bump of her spinal column. “I’ve never had many burgers, either way.”

She lifted her head in surprise. “At all?”

He shrugged. “Not on the program. Sometimes there are local-” Castle sighed and his thumb pushed up under her shirt. “I had a burger in Hong Kong a few years back. It was - really good.”

She smiled and laid her cheek against his shoulder. “I’m afraid this-” She waved a hand to the options outside the window. “Will be rather disappointing.”

“You think so?”

She bit her lip, tracing her fingers over his collarbone, dipping under the material of his shirt. His skin was so warm. She loved the salt-sweat of him, the way it tasted on her tongue. Just being this close, with his chest under her fingers, she could practically taste it now. “I really want some fries,” she said finally.

Castle tightened his arm around her and buried his face in her hair, nose nuzzling her neck. She couldn’t help the way that tickled, caught the back of his head with her forearm, gulping a breath as the giggle popped in her throat.

“I’m going to get you some fries, sweetheart. All the fries you can eat.”

She nodded her head against him, drew her knees up and slid into his lap. The urge to laugh was twisting violently in her throat, choking her, and now she might cry.

Just that fast.

“Colin? One of those - yeah, there - burgers and fries.” She could feel his arm as he gestured from the back seat. Kate hid her face against his shoulder, taking fast breaths until the urgency of tears began to subside. “Oh, gross, Col. Not McDonalds. None of that fast food shit. We’re going inside. Sitting down. Right, Kate?”

She lifted her head and turned to look at the franchise restaurant parking lot. “Yeah,” she said finally. And then her lips twitched and she glanced towards the front, meeting Colin’s eyes in the rear view mirror. “Sit down and eat like a family.”

Colin groaned.

\-----

"My two dads," she said to him, a slow, teasing smile on her face.

"What?" he said, shifting James in his arms. Colin already had Wyatt's hand in his and was carefully leading him across the parking lot. 

"My Two Dads?" Kate repeated. "TV show. When I was a kid. Never mind. You guys are cute, that's all."

He grinned back at her, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together. "We are?"

"You and Colin make a very nice couple," she said sweetly.

He growled at her and darted in fast to kiss her mouth, teeth crashing against her bottom lip. She was laughing again, and the sound gutted him out, it really did.

That she could laugh. That she could laugh and mean it, feel it, be happy.

"No," he said, hanging on to her hand as he shut the back door of the SUV. "Don't let go. I don't want to leave it in any doubt in there. My own brother. Gross, Beckett."

She didn't giggle, but her smile was wide. He shifted towards the restaurant and called out for Colin to lock the doors. His brother lifted his free hand with the key fob and made a production out of aiming it back to the vehicle; Kate jumped when the horn sounded to indicate it was locked and alarmed.

"Alarm," he explained. "New feature. Remote locks with the key in his hand."

"Oh," she said. She shifted on her feet and suddenly turned back to the car, darting across the pavement to the back window.

"Kate!" he called, jerking back to follow. James gripped his shirt in his fists and made a startled noise.

She ducked her head before the back window of the SUV and ran her fingers through her hair. "Holy shit, Castle. I look like - hell."

"What?" he said, heart racing as he caught up to her. He grabbed her hand, felt like he needed to crush her against his chest after that move. "What are you talking about?"

"I didn't have a blow dryer and my hair is a rat's nest from sleeping in your lap. Plus I'm wearing leggings and a damn sweatshirt. I look ridiculous."

"You don't look ridiculous," he protested. "Kate, we're in the middle of nowhere New York." 

Kate huffed at him and shook off his grip, started finger-combing her hair. She shot an anxious look over her shoulder. "Where is Wyatt?"

"With Colin. Probably complaining about your slow ass." 

"Shit, this is unmanageable. I look like a scarecrow."

He growled and reached for her hand again, juggling James as the boy tried to lean out for her. "What are you doing, Kate? You're fine. You blend in, look around you."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I blend in?"

"Look at these people. This is not a runway fashion show. This isn't even New York City. It's Bumfuck, New York. These people eat here every Friday night, wearing the same damn t-shirt and jeans. You look fine. Can we go?"

"It's Friday?" she suddenly.

His heart crashed. "Shit, baby." Castle sank back against the vehicle, tilting his head to the glass. "Shit. Shit. Yes. It's Friday."

She leaned back with him, her shoulder touching his. "Friday," she murmured slowly. "Right."

"Right." He shook his head and glanced at her, really saw her. 

This young kid in an oversized Army sweatshirt with her skinny legs in those black spandex and cotton pants. Her hair falling around her face, chopped at her shoulders but uneven with the waves and curls of her hair.

Castle shifted to put James against his chest, and then he reached out and tucked a strand behind her ear. "You look like you're on a study break, fresh from the library, that whole haven't seen the sky for hours, need sustenance kind of thing. Writing a research paper for class or studying for finals on a summer course you absolutely have to have for credit or your whole major is doomed."

Kate sucked in a breath and stared at him.

"And you're taking a break and heading for dinner with your family, and we might be strange, and maybe you got a little off track because of the kids, but it's working out okay. It's working. You'll eat a whole plate of fries and we'll see if the boys like them and then we'll get back in the car and go."

Kate nodded, and her hand came out to take his, lacing their fingers together.

She led the way across the parking lot, and Castle let himself relax.

He had managed to catch her before she could go; he'd managed to keep her with him.

\-----

"There you are," Colin muttered, rolling his eyes at them as they stepped into the narrow foyer. The hostess was set up right behind him, perky and attentive, but her eyes barely even registered Kate. She was taking names and handing out menus and coordinating waiters.

Kate was relieved, even felt a kind of thrill zip down her spine. She was just a tired college co-ed, finally getting out on a Friday night. She wasn't a science experiment, wasn't an escaped prisoner, wasn't anything other than a girl in a sweatshirt.

The restaurant was big. And very crowded. And it smelled like burgers and fries and summer, and people, lots of people, and even the foyer was crowded with those waiting for a table.

Wyatt leaned out from Colin's arms and made grabby hands at her, whining. She stepped into him and kissed his hands, petted down his hair. "Be good," she murmured. "Stay with Colin."

"I already put our names in," Colin said, shifting Wyatt to his other arm. He automatically put a hand up to the boy's back, bracing him, and Kate's heart settled. "I said Grant."

Castle nodded.

"Grant?" she said faintly. A group of girls near the bar were loud, and laughing in that tipsy-hilarious way, flirting with their waiter.

"We go through the Presidents usually," Castle said.

"Oh," she murmured. Snapped back to him when he touched her hip. "Not using our own names?"

"No, honey-"

"Very bad idea," Colin muttered. "We've just decimated a CIA black ops site. We're not going to be using our names for a while. Whatever that means."

"What does it mean?" she whispered.

Castle's hand splayed at her lower back, his mouth ducking close to her ear. "Nothing at all. Just that Col and I have his name - and his name was invented too. So - what does it matter?"

"Castle?" she asked. And then shook her head. "I mean, you said you didn't use his name."

"Right. Hunt was his name, Black was his name. Colin Hunt, Richard Black. We don't use those names ever."

"But he's still Colin and you're... Castle."

He gave her a crooked smile. "Yeah, love. I made it up when I was eleven."

She bit her bottom lip and bumped her shoulder into his, laying her head against his arm. James leaned down into her and she kissed his forehead even as she smiled. "That's cute. You named yourself Castle when you were eleven?"

Castle grunted. Still cute, despite his rugged, chiseled face and definite male virility. Still very cute.

The hostess approached, fanning her menus. "Is all of our party here?"

"We're all here," Colin said. "Finally. Three adults and two - you got highchairs or something, right?"

"Yes, we do," she said back, leading the way through the crowded restaurant. "I'll have two brought to your table. You're lucky - a large party just left us."

Colin flirted with the hostess as she threaded their train through the tables. He said something that made the girl laugh - God, she was probably a high school student (or, damn, college-aged; she was probably Kate's age exactly, now that she was looking). 

Kate squeezed Castle's hand and he gave her a smile back, a nod of his head towards Colin. The girl was saying something about how cute his nephew was, like his uncle, something like that, and Col was laying it on pretty thick, winking and smiling and babe-ing her.

"Here we are," the girl said finally, gesturing to a round semi-circle booth in the far back corner of the restaurant.

Perfect. Kate sat down first and slipped down the plastic-y seat towards the back, her spine against the corner and her eyes out at the restaurant. Colin and Castle both frowned, still standing as they waited on the high chairs.

"What?" she asked.

"We don't like booths," Colin muttered. "Hard to get out of."

"And I have to have my eyes on the restaurant," Castle said, frowning deeper. "In case."

She laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth. "Well, fine. I'm - gonna go to the bathroom. You arrange seating however you want when the high chairs get here."

She slid back around and stood up, but Castle put his hand on her hip and held her back. "I - you are?" 

"What?"

"Just - I - you're going to the bathroom. They're all the way on the other side at the back."

"I saw them when I came in," she said, frowning back at him. "Why?"

"No. Nothing," he whispered. And then he dug his hand into his back pocket and withdrew that cell phone he'd left her that first day. "Here." He slipped it into the pocket of her sweatshirt. "So I can - if you need... me."

She clutched his wrist and pulled his hand out of her pocket, turning towards the restaurant to maneuver through all those tables once more. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that she was walking away from him. 

She was alone.

In a crowd of strangers.

\-----

Her hands were shaking as she threaded through the tables, slowly, slowly, trying to keep her heart rate from jacking up and giving her away to Castle. She kept getting run into - a waiter hustling fast with a tray of beers, a man getting up from his table without looking, a six year old screaming after his older sister. 

She was breathing hard by the time she made it through the narrow, crowded tables to the back where the bar and kitchens met up with the storage rooms. A wood-paneled hall branched off towards the bathrooms, and she shot straight for them, running.

She was running. God. She was losing it.

Kate collided with the women’s restroom door, gasping when it didn’t budge an inch under her hands. She grunted and pushed her shoulder into it, digging her heels into the floor until she had wedged it open just enough. She slipped through and into the bathroom with a tight exhale.

Three stalls. Someone was in the first one, the narrowest, and Kate darted fast for the handicap stall. Her fingers fumbled with the door handle, a cold metal thing that felt somehow frozen. She pulled the door shut after her and then faced the latch.

The latch.

Kate couldn’t make her fingers work. She thumbed the hard knob and shoved on it, but it wouldn’t seem to work. The two pieces weren’t lined up correctly and it just pushed the slide against the bracket. 

She had to start over.

God.

Kate pressed her forehead to the plastic laminate of the door and swallowed hard. Start over, Katie, start over.

She pushed through the door and heard a flush from the first stall, ran for the second one, and crammed herself into the smaller space. She was sweating, and she felt sick to her stomach, her palms tingling, but this lock worked.

The latch slid closed and came to rest, and Kate pressed her hands to the door for a moment, just a moment, and took a breath.

The muscles in her thighs jumped and quivered, her armpits were damp, and the walls felt like they were closing in on her.

Kate backed away from the door and her thighs hit the back of the toilet. She grunted, a shudder running through her, the germs, and she hadn’t realized that was a thing, but now her palms itched at the thought of how she’d touched the door, and her forehead against the laminate, and it crawled up and down her spine.

The facility had been so sterile. So pointedly immaculate. Not just clean, but austere. The tables crowded on the restaurant floor, the people moving and laughing and bumping into her, the grime and grease on every surface - she couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t do this.

She couldn’t-

Kate squeezed her fists tightly, taking a hard breath in, staring at the door. Five. The dark green laminate held texture that she could actually see if she looked hard enough. Four. It rippled in waves and juddered across the surface, green green, silver purse hook, green. Three. The door fit crookedly into the slot, the green askew, misplaced. Two. The two walls of the stall were held together by metal brackets, dull with age and use. One.

Her breath was steady. Her fists released. She shucked the sweatshirt over her head and hung it on the hook on the door. The green door. Forest green.

She pushed down her leggings and the white cotton underwear, squatted over the toilet, closed her eyes.

Five. Drifted. Four. Green. Three. Door. Two-

A sharp vibration made her jerk. It came again, bouncing against the door, thumping madly, and she realized it had to be the phone in her sweatshirt pocket. Kate straightened up, wiped, pulled up her leggings as her heart thudded again, her mouth dry. She got dressed fast, record time this one, and reached into the sweatshirt’s pocket.

She yanked out the phone and saw the display all lit up. When she pressed a button though, the little black icons blinked out and disappeared. It did give her the time. 20:13. Which was eight, military time. And the date too, she realized: Friday, May 28, Netcom. She blinked at the icons grouped around the tiny screen. Menu. She knew what that was, so she pressed the button with a blue line under it.

Shit. What the hell was this? Messages, Missed Calls, Settings. Forget it. It had probably been a wrong number. Or Castle, freaking out over the heart monitor on his wrist. Yeah, probably that. 

Well. Time to go.

Kate fisted the little Nokia phone and pulled the sweatshirt over her head again, pushing up the sleeves because she was still fear-hot. She put the phone back in the middle pocket and worked at the latch, but she felt her heart thumping hard again, jolted out of her calm by the damn phone.

When she slipped out of the stall, the bathroom was empty. She couldn’t remember hearing the other woman leave, but she’d heard the flush. Kate moved quickly to the sinks and pushed on the water, hissing when it came out hot. 

Hot water. Right.

Kate adjusted the temperature until she could stand it, and then she held her hands under the water, listening to her heart thudding and stuttering in her chest. 

Running water, running and running, pouring down over her hands, tumbling to the basin. Cool and clean, even though her hands were shaking. Cool and clean. Her heart pounding and her mouth dry. Cool and clean.

Kate lifted her head. Saw herself in the scratched, cheap mirror. A panel of tin really. Her hair was in waves, her eyes shadowed; she was tired, she was coming down hard.

The water was running.

Her hands were freezing.

\-----

Castle slammed his cell phone on the table and both boys jumped. Colin gave him a look.

“She’s not answering your urgent texts, I take it,” Colin said.

“I’m not sure she knows how to answer,” he bit out. Damn him. He couldn’t have taken five minutes to show her the phone? She hadn’t even known what the key fob would do, of course she hadn’t known how to answer his text messages.

“Why don’t you just cool it, man? I promise, I’m getting nothing.”

Nothing is what had him afraid.

“And James - James is cool. See him? Chilling. Eating his fries. You like fries a lot buddy, don’t you?”

Castle glanced to James and watched him easily gumming the seasoned fries the waitress had brought out. Nearly ten minutes ago. Wyatt was on Colin’s side, chewing thoughtfully on his own fry, glancing down at it, manipulating it between his fingers before sticking it in his mouth again. They’d been at it a while. 

Kate had been in the bathroom now for twenty minutes.

James wasn’t happy but he wasn’t freaked out and crying either; he looked interested in his food though not exactly overjoyed. But Castle didn’t know if that was just the boy wanting to nurse, or not hungry, or sensing something. Because Kate had been rather - in and out - these last few days, and James hadn’t seemed to know about that either.

What did that mean? Kate was just usually in and out?

Castle gripped the edge of the table and stood up. 

“No. Come on, man,” Colin groaned.

“Stay with the boys,” Castle got out, pushing away from the bench. 

But he hesitated. He dropped his hand on the top of James’s head, unsure of whether or not his own steady resolve would help things, distributed through his touch. James looked up at him, raised up a fry.

“No,” Castle said. “But thanks.”

James’s mouth turned down.

“Shit, man, you hurt his feelings.”

Castle grunted at Colin but Colin didn’t seem to be kidding. So Castle leaned in over the boy and took the fry in his mouth, munching, sucking on James’s fingers until the kid laughed.

He swallowed the fry and nudged his cheek into the top of James’s head. “I’m gonna find Mommy. Hang on, kid.”

He lifted up and strode across the floor, cutting a firm swath through the restaurant. People moved out of his way, and he didn’t let anything slow him down. It took less than no time to find the back bathrooms and only two strides down the hall to reach the women’s. He put his hand to the-

Kate opened the door and gasped, jerking hard as he loomed before her.

Castle caught her shoulders and she flinched, her arms coming up in self-defense.

“Kate,” he said, drawing her into his chest and out of the bathroom.

“Castle,” she panted.

“Fuck, you scared the shit out of me,” he choked out.

“Me?” She shoved hard on his chest and he was so surprised he tripped backward. “You asshole. You just jumped out at me. I was going to the bathroom.”

He caught her elbow, dragged her closer. “Bathroom. Twenty minutes ago.”

Kate blinked, stiffened. “Twenty?” She turned her head as if to look over her shoulder and then her eyes came back to him. “No, I...”

“Almost twenty-five, now,” he said, drawing her through the hall. 

He saw her take the phone out of her pocket and glance at it; he saw himself the numbers on the screen. 20:41. He should take it off military time - he wasn’t sure she knew what that was.

“I - I just... lost track of time,” she mumbled. He could barely hear her over the noise coming from the crowd. Lost track of time.

“Kate...” He scrubbed his hand down his face and shook his head. “Fries.”

“What?” she said, lifting her head.

“We have fries at the table, waiting on us. Boys seem to like them, but I think you’re gonna have to convince Wyatt they’re actually edible.”

She looked at him and then nodded. “Fries. Yeah. I’m hungry.” 

He tried to make them look natural, just a man guiding his young wife back to their table. He made her go ahead of him, pushing on her a little when her steps seemed to slow, his chest at her back, his hands on her hips to keep her steady.

When they got back to the main foyer, Kate turned and took his hand from her hip, laced their fingers together. “Don’t push,” she said, her voice low. Her eyes were deep, too deep to understand.

He paused. “No,” he said quietly. “No, I won’t push.” He squeezed her fingers and nodded to her, and she went through to the other side. Their hand-clasp was loose, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, looking strong and dominant as she walked through the tables, tugging him behind her.

He was proud of her.

Wyatt saw her first and threw up both of his hands, fries flying through the air. “Mama!”

Kate laughed.

\-----

Kate had Wyatt in her lap, her arms filled with him, his warm body leaning back against her while they picked the last of the fries from her plate. She sat between Castle on one side and Colin on the other, both of them primed at the edge of the booth to spring to their feet if necessary. James sat in the highchair at the head of the table, unconcerned with the favor being shown his brother.

Castle was keeping him distracted too, so that helped. He had cut up a cheeseburger into tiny pieces and placed them before the boy, and James was stuffing handfuls into his mouth as quickly as he could.

Kate pulled her feet up onto the bench seat to brace Wyatt, her arms tired, and she grabbed another french fry. Castle had ordered her a second plate, this one steaming hot and salty, the seasoning so damn good she could cry. Literally cry. Which she fought against by teasing Wyatt’s open mouth with a fry like he was a baby bird.

It was a game now. He made exaggerated movements with his mouth, chewed it up with those two back molars he’d gotten sometime in the last few weeks. Four front teeth and two back molars, and James had all four of his bottom front teeth and two on the top.

“I bet your brother has molars too,” she whispered to Wyatt, touching her nose to his. “What do you think? He always gets his first.”

Teeth she knew. Three months old, both of them. A surprise too, feeling that hard sharp point against her breast. She had flinched and James had startled, stopped nursing entirely, staring up at her. She had pushed her finger in his mouth when the aide hadn’t been looking, (the woman had been getting Wyatt from the isolette, the only private moment she’d ever had with them at the beginning), and she’d wiped her finger along James’s gums until she felt it.

Bottom tooth. He had gnawed on her finger, grinding hard, and she had felt the tooth break the surface of his gums. 

Kate shivered. Wyatt patted her cheek and leaned out for another fry. She grinned at him and grabbed one herself. “Ooh, it’s hot, baby. Careful.”

He made a startled face, lips pursing and cheeks puffed, and Kate laughed, head tilting back as she sucked in a breath. Castle glanced over at her, his smile soft on his face, and James grunted and reached out for more burger.

“You give him any of this?” Castle asked, nudging her own cheeseburger towards her. One bite was gone.

Kate let out her breath and shook her head. “It’s too greasy.”

Castle glanced at her and then took up his knife and began cutting it up for Wyatt. “I bet he’d like it. If you fed it to him...”

He wanted her to eat it. “Castle.”

“Protein, Kate. It’s - protein is important.” He gave her a long look, the knife paused. His eyes had a grey tinge to them that she’d seen in James’s eyes at night. Soft and serious.

“Okay,” she said finally. 

“Thank you,” he murmured. His lips came fast and he leaned in, a hand on her knee as he kissed her mouth. He tasted like salt and seasoning. She let out a long, shuddering breath and tried to give Wyatt a smile.

She felt folded up. Not just because she was, actually, folded up in the booth with the boy in her lap, but something inside was just, folded tightly again and again. Over and over. Endless folds so that the meaning couldn’t be gotten to.

She tilted her cheek towards the back of the booth, tired. Castle cut up the cheeseburger for her - nothing on it, cheese and meat and bread - and she took one of the smaller pieces when he had a few ready. She popped it into her mouth first, because she had to, and then took another for Wyatt.

He gave her a look.

She chewed her own bite and then swallowed. “See? All gone. Now you. Castle says protein is important.”

Wyatt opened his mouth like a baby bird and she touched the piece to his bottom lip, over his little teeth to his tongue. He gummed it at first, and then he seemed to be chewing, that surprised look coming over his face.

“Good?” Castle asked, leaning in close, brushing his fingers over the top of Wyatt’s head. “Wy, what do you think, my man?”

Wyatt bobbed his head like he was agreeing, and Kate smiled, reluctantly taking another piece. Bite-sized. She tasted the grease and it made her stomach flip.

“Castle,” she said.

He was already studying her. She made a face and gave the piece to Wyatt instead, who gobbled it up. 

“Okay,” Castle sighed. “But... milk?”

Her stomach flipped. “No.”

His face fell. She just couldn’t. It had already been too much and then she had stuffed herself with fries because those were - were comfort, the taste simple but the salt sharp and the seasoning giving her lips a burn that made her drink two whole glasses of water.

She couldn’t.

“Wait, I know,” Castle said. “Be right back.”

Castle popped up from the bench seat and already she missed the warmth of him. She nestled into the side of the booth instead, stroked her fingers over Wyatt’s ear until he babbled at her and reached for more hamburger.

Babbled. “Hey,” she said, straightening up. “You talking? It’s a burger. Burger. Here. Want some more?”

She fed him another piece and he beamed at her, cheese and burger between those little teeth, and she laughed, cupping his cute face.

“Good?” she murmured. “Glad you like it. I think Daddy was disappointed in me.”

“Mama,” Wyatt mumbled around his burger. 

She closed his lips with her fingers. “Chew it up, kid. Don’t want you to choke. Haven’t come all this way to lose you to a burger.”

“Fuck, that’s for sure,” Colin muttered. “How fucking terrible would that be?”

She flashed him a look and he held up both hands, sitting back, taking a tooth pick from his plate and sticking it in his mouth. 

Kate shifted on the seat to scoot closer to James, picked up one of his last pieces of cheese burger and handed it over to his eager grasp. He fed himself, wriggling in his highchair like he was so pleased, and then thrusting out his hand for more.

“Wait, let me get some of your brother’s.” Kate had to clutch Wyatt against her chest and reach for the other plate, but Colin nudged it her way with a finger. “Thanks.”

He nodded, just watching her, and she picked up another piece and offered it to James. Wyatt squawked and Kate laughed, hurriedly giving him a piece too.

Suddenly, she felt Castle looming at her side and she looked up. He was bright-faced and grinning, holding four styrofoam cups. She sat up straight and he sank down beside her, kissed her hard. 

“Got you something,” he said.

“Yeah?” She leaned in over his arm with Wyatt in her lap, clinging like a monkey as he worked at his cheeseburger. “What?”

“Milkshake.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You - you did?”

“Yeah,” he grinned.

She shivered. “What kind?”

“Um. All they had. Which one do you want?”

She felt her cheeks flush and she eyed the four cups. “Strawberry,” she murmured.

“I knew it,” he grinned, setting one at her place. “I knew it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You did not.”

“I got two strawberry shakes, yes I so did.”

She laughed, withdrawing a hand from James to take the cup. She put her mouth to the straw and already she could smell it, that thick creamy scent of milkshake.

When she sucked on the straw, it was so thick it barely came up for her. She was too impatient to wait for it to melt a little, so she popped the lid off and brought the end of the straw up to her open mouth.

She licked the pink ice cream with her tongue and sucked on the end of the straw, humming and closing her eyes with the strawberry flavor hit her tastebuds.

Kate groaned and dropped her elbow to the table. Opened her eyes to stare at the milkshake. Her eyes watered and she glanced at Castle; he looked a little overwhelmed himself.

“Oh, fuck. Don’t you dare cry over a milkshake,” Colin muttered. “Give me one of those, Castle.”

Castle handed one over and Colin snatched it, sucking furiously. Kate sneaked a look to Castle and he was watching her, so she smiled at him and leaned in, softly kissed his cheek.

“You got me a strawberry milkshake,” she whispered.

“Two,” he said back. “And - whoops - looks like Wyatt wants you to share.”

She turned her head to look and Wyatt had ducked his whole hand into her cup.

\-----

Castle carried Wyatt this time while Colin took a sleepy James. Wyatt was babbling against his neck, humming in the same way Kate hummed to them, but it looked like James was going to fall asleep the second he got settled in the car seat.

Kate had her hand tucked into the pocket of his combat fatigues, cool and light, tethering her to him. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her, the fall of her hair as she ducked her head to sip at the milkshake, her lips pursed around the straw. She looked happy, and tired herself, and she (and the boys) had polished off two whole plates of fries.

All in all, it hadn't gone that badly. It wasn't the right combinations of foods; no, they were nowhere close to that, but she had nursed and had the pedialyte today, and he'd done the tables in his head, the calculations for Vitamin D uptake versus potassium and lipoproteins, and so long as he got her to eat scrambled eggs in the morning, he thought it would balance out.

Eggs. Almonds. He'd really like to push a beet smoothie down her throat, but he had a feeling he and his brothers weren't the only ones Black had force-fed beet smoothies to.

Her fingers wriggled in his pocket when they got to the car. She was smiling up at him, tall for a woman but still - her head came up right at his chin; he was already daydreaming about tucking her up against him and resting his cheek on her crown.

"Thanks," she said quietly, one of those shy, self-possessed smiles on her face. 

He didn't want gratitude. But he didn't know how to disclaim it without also breaking her contentment. "My pleasure," he told her, opening the back door. She crawled in, using the running board to step up, but she turned around and leaned out, catching herself on his shoulder as she pressed her lips to his.

Her kiss was strawberry-sweet and cold, and he growled when her tongue teased.

She hummed as she broke away from him, smiling slowly, and then she crawled to the back row. Castle let out a fast breath, swallowed down the sensation of drowning, and hoisted Wyatt into his carseat. "Gotta figure out something else," he muttered to the boy. "Can't keep making her crawl back there."

Wyatt grinned and kissed his cheek. Castle startled, staring at the kid, heat climbing in his face.

"He kissed you," Kate said, leaning forward and running her fingers through Wyatt's hair. The boy tilted his head up to look at her and lifted his arms. She cupped the side of his face. "Did you kiss your daddy?"

Castle's heart thrashed in his chest and he wanted to kiss her, fiercely, seal that claim for all time. 

"Yeah, baby," she murmured. "I saw that. He made you happy, I know."

She combed her fingers through Wyatt's hair, brushing it off his face, and then her hand lifted and did the same to him, sweeping and soft, like it was natural, like she didn't even know she was doing it, and everything combusted inside his chest.

A sharp jab in his arm made him look, and Colin was glaring at him from the other side of the vehicle. He was trying to get James in his seat, wrestling with the limp body, and it was obvious he felt every single thing bursting to life in Castle.

"Not sorry," Castle muttered, punching him back. But he caught James's head and neck, helping Colin maneuver the boy into the seat, and then he turned to Wyatt and buckled him into the safety restraints.

When he crawled into the back with Kate, she was smiling at him, the milkshake cradled in one arm but her hand lifting to touch his shoulder. He settled in at her side even as Colin slammed the doors shut - oops, Castle had forgotten and he got another hostile look for it - and then Colin went around to the driver's side door.

Kate laid her cheek against his shoulder and curled in against his side.

He didn't think he was breathing. His heart wasn't beating. He was rooted to the seat with Kate nuzzling into him and his whole body filled with her, every sense of her, and he was going to die if he couldn't press his love back into her. Somehow. Couldn't he somehow wrap her in his love so that nothing could ever hurt her again?

The SUV backed out of the parking spot and the lurch of the car made Kate settle deeper into him. Castle laid his hand on her knee and mustered up the words to tell her, to say something, all of it building in his chest.

But when he looked down to catch her eye, she was asleep.

\-----

Strawberry lips. The sweet-fake taste of pink and sugar swirling in her mouth. Her mother handing her a cotton candy and her father scowling there's no cotton candy at a baseball game. The ball soaring into the lights, the cheer rising like a wave from the crowd, rushing towards her, cresting over her head, and flying past.

The pink taste on her tongue. The melt of sugar and empty air. The hard crunch of sugar crystals in her back teeth, her molars and her gums. The blue eyes staring up at her, the startled wariness as she checks his mouth, you have two new teeth. Rubbing her thumb against his cheek to turn his head back to her breast. The pull of pink lips, the sensation rising like a wave inside her, rushing towards her, cresting until she can't help but love-

"Kate!"

She woke with a jerk, arms flailing out to brace herself against the shove. But there was no wall, no crying baby, no collapse to the floor.

Castle was cradling her by the back of her neck, an arm banded around her torso, holding her together.

A dream. A dream of the facility. Of her own childhood. Tangled together.

"Kate?" he whispered.

"I'm awake," she croaked.

The car was stopped. Parked. The boys weren't here. The car was empty and Castle held her tightly, crushed. 

"Where are they?" she scraped out.

"Where are - oh, no, Kate - honey - they're here. Colin has them running in the grass."

"I don't understand." She felt blank inside, blank but for the pink soft gums, pink cotton candy, the pink running down. 

"We stopped at a rest area," Castle said. Gravely. His eyes searched hers. He was shifting her upright. "It's late. Both boys were cranky. I think I need to change their diapers."

"A bathroom," she mumbled, the world orienting itself around her again. "Yeah, good idea."

"Colin took them out of the car when I couldn't wake you."

"Couldn't wake - I'm awake."

"Yeah," he said, nodding hard. His throat bobbed. His eyes were silver in the darkness, a kind of moonlight all their own. "Yeah, you are now."

"Bad dream," she sighed, sliding her feet to the floor. Her shoes were off. "Where are my shoes?"

"Oh, here. I thought you'd be more comfortable stretched out. Had your feet in my lap for the last hour or so."

"Oh." She shivered and pointed her toes into the floorboards. "I should use the bathroom. Can I - have my shoes?"

"Of course," he husked, handing them over in the narrow space of the backseat. 

His fingers brushed her hair back and the light from the parking lot came streaming in through the window. He sighed and dropped his hand and she pushed back into the corner to bring up a knee, tug her shoe onto her foot without untying the laces.

"Kate, honey, you okay?"

"Yeah."

"What was the dream?"

"Same." She shivered again and shook her head. "No, it was. Good at first. Seeing a Mets game with my dad. My mom was there. She never went with us. I was little. She bought me a pink cotton candy. Dad always bought us peanuts and we cracked the shells, but I secretly wanted - I think my mom did that once at a Disney on Ice thing she took me too. I guess I was mixing it all up in my head."

"Pink cotton candy. I've never had cotton candy; is it good?"

"If you're a kid," she said, trying a smile. "Yeah. It's heaven in your mouth."

Castle gave a strange little sigh and she got her other shoe on, finally, and moved to crawl forward. But he stopped her. "And then?"

"And then it wasn't good anymore," she said, shrugging and opening the back door. She climbed down to the running board on weak knees and felt her ankle turn when she jumped down. Still tired, still weird feeling, still not right. A milkshake and fries weren't going to make her normal again.

She saw the boys right away, off under the trees with Colin following them lazily, Wyatt careful and not excited about the pitch of the ground and James running from tree to tree like it was a game.

Castle touched her hand; she flinched but her fingers spasmed around his, tightening.

"Debrief is good for the soul, Kate." He squeezed back.

"What's debrief?"

"Telling what happened as it happened. No commentary, no judgments. Fact to fact. Point to point. Event to-"

"Alright, already," she muttered. "Got it. Debrief. It was a dream. It was good and then it got bad and you woke me up."

He sighed.

She swallowed down that instinct to do better, be better, but it surged up inside her, fast and quick, tasting bitter.

I'm disappointed, Katherine.

"I - was nursing one of them. When they were small, I couldn't tell them apart. But maybe it was just the dream, not knowing - it was just a dream. But the baby had a new tooth, and I was just feeling for the tooth when he took him from me."

Fingers tightened around hers, impossibly hard. She let out a long breath, letting out the taste of empty pink air.

"The first time I tried to take one of them and escape, he knew it. He saw it on my face or - he knew. He ripped him out of my arms and had the guard slam my face into the wall. I thought it broke my nose but it just hurt really bad."

"F-fuck."

"I think I was dreaming that when you shook me awake. I felt it in my face, like - like it was happening. I didn't mean to hit you, I-"

"You didn't hurt me. I can take a hit." He was standing at her side as they balanced on the edge of the sidewalk, neither of them moving. "You tried to take one of the boys and run?"

"A couple times. I figured I could take one, I could do one. And the other would... be enough for him."

"Which one?" he husked.

"I never knew them apart until later," she sighed. "I don't know which one. But-"

"But?"

"I think it was Wyatt," she whispered. "First to nurse."

"Oh, God."

She watched the boys, chewing hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from breaking apart. But she had to tell someone - no, no, more than someone. He was more than someone. He was their father. The only one who had to know was Castle. "I think James knew I wasn't going to take him with me."

"No." He snatched her by the shoulders. "No, Kate. He couldn't possibly."

"How do you know?" she whispered.

"I know. I know." His arms came around her tightly, crushing her against his chest, and it was easier somehow, easier to have him holding her together. "And you didn't mean to choose. You only did what you could. Doesn't matter now, anyway, because they are both here. They both have you; they're both free of him."

She nodded into his embrace, rubbing her nose against his shirt, and then she unwound her arms from between them and hugged him hard. He hugged her back harder, his chest rumbling with something she couldn't understand, but soothing anyway.

Free of him. Free. In the dark night under the trees, free. And she couldn't seem to manage one step past the fence of Castle. 

"I have to pee," she muttered.

Castle chuckled and finally released her.

And then she did go, walking down the lonely sidewalk into the brightly-lighted bathrooms, wishing with every second that he would follow her anyway.

But he didn't.

\-----


	17. Chapter 17

Castle walked out across the grass, slowly following Colin and the boys across the wide spread of lawn between the buildings. The trees behind the vending machines were sparse, stunted things; the whole landscape gave the impression of worn neglect. 

There were no other cars in the lot, and Colin had assured him no one was lurking. He trusted his brother’s super power - he’d been the one to handle the security agents at the facility for just that reason - but Castle still had some nervous anxiety over watching Kate walk in there alone.

So he followed the boys across the grass and watched them discover. James was confident in his wide-ranging explorations, while Wyatt seemed to prefer to study his brother’s movements and inspect the grass at his feet. Castle remembered those reports he’d quickly scanned, how Wyatt had been given problem-solving tasks using fine motor skills while James had been put through obstacle course challenges using gross motor skills and body planning.

It was glaringly obvious.

Castle crossed his arms over his chest and wondered how he could possibly undo the damage done. Was it damage? Or had his father noted skills already in progress and simply enhanced them? Would James have always been the more rough and tumble one, while Wyatt took time to observe and analyze? Or had his father carefully inculcated those characteristics in these boys?

There was no way to know, not now. Too late. Too late to change the way James and Wyatt approached their world. 

Castle had thought the boys had been saved from everything - too little to know better, too little to remember. But some things stayed, some events shaped a person’s entire life, regardless of when they occurred.

Kate had known that. Kate had tried to stop it. She had been pushed to the wall, literally. She had planned and planned for years, planned her escape.

It had taken some brutal self-harm to get here.

But she had gotten here. That was - unbelievable really. Kate Beckett, a twenty-two year old girl who should’ve been in college, had fooled John Black so thoroughly that she had managed to put a scalpel in his fucking throat and then - and then - carved out his eye.

It chilled him to his core. This girl had something. More than just guts. She’d thought to run with one of them, one of these boys, just pick the first one handed to her and go. And when that hadn’t worked, she had lived with it, lived with all of it, and planned again. And again. And again until it had worked.

It had taken her three years. But. It had taken her only fourteen months.

Castle uncrossed his arms and shifted off his heels to move forward, intercepting James as he ran around a tree, scooping him up into his arms. James didn’t wriggle or squirm; he went still against Castle’s chest. He seemed to know the drill, but was it contentment with where he was, who he was with, or was it a learned behavior to avoid punishment?

The boys knew how to survive, just like Kate did, and it was going to be a while before that instinctive and automatic response could be unlearned.

Castle cupped the back of James’s head and kissed the boy’s cheek. “My fault, kid. I’ll let you run. Here.” He squatted back down and released James, holding out his arms for the boy to go free.

James bolted, immediately off, and Castle stayed hunched over, elbows on his knees, watching the boys. They weren’t quite playing, but they weren’t holding themselves back either. They must sense a new freedom, and maybe having this unlimited access to Kate helped prove the difference, but he could see now how much work it was going to be to make that change permanent.

Colin approached and lifted a foot to nudge Castle’s ass, trying to knock him over. Castle caught his ankle, twisted, and Colin laughed and broke his hold easily, neither of them trying very hard.

“Stop thinking so much,” Colin said.

“Can’t help it.”

“Used to be able to help it.”

“Yeah, but weren’t you the one always trying to get me to open my damn eyes? See what Black was doing?”

Colin sighed, scuffed a toe against a fallen pine cone. “Yeah. That was me.”

“And here it is. Here’s what sticking my head in the sand-”

“You mean up your own ass.”

“-has done to them. It’s hard not to think about it.”

“But you can’t change it,” Colin said. “You can’t change a damn thing. Not what happened to us, not what he did, not these boys’ first year of life.”

“Not Kate,” he said quietly.

“Not her either,” Colin muttered. “Her least of all. She’s not an open book, Castle. She is very definitely closed. Even to me.”

“She has reason to be.”

“I don’t know.”

Castle frowned and glanced up at his brother. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t know what she is. I owe her my fucking sanity, I know that. She fucking gutted John Black. I will forever owe her. But I don’t know what she is. What it takes to be able to do that. God knows I tried. You tried. But she did it.”

Castle dragged in a hard breath. “What she is - is better than us. Stronger.”

“I’m not denying it,” Colin said harshly. “I’m agreeing with you. But what does that make her? Harder than you? Crazier than me? Both?”

“She’s not insane,” Castle hissed. “She’s a girl.”

“She’s no damn girl,” Colin growled. “Don’t you dare make that mistake. I don’t think she’d appreciate it either.”

Castle scraped his hand over his face. “No. I know she’s not. But she’s been through hell, and I’m not going to hold it against her.”

“I didn’t say that. I said she’s not yet out of hell, Castle. She’s still there.”

\-----

When she came out of the bathroom, Castle was standing in the little lobby between the men and women’s doors, his hands in his pockets, his back against the state map. She paused, drying her hands on her pants, watching him warily.

“I don’t know what to say to you,” he said.

“Doing okay so far.”

He grunted, and seemed to be checking in with her, and then he finally released his laugh into the air. She resisted the urge to chew on the inside of her cheek and faced him.

“It was just a bad dream,” she said.

“But it had real memory attached.”

“Maybe.”

“The story you told me was true.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t mean that to be a question-”

“I know.”

He frowned, staring down at the floor. “What you’ve experienced isn’t gonna go away. And I know that. I wish I could say you’re safe and everything is fine, but hell, you’re going to have nightmares.”

“You don’t have to worry about my nightmares,” she got out.

“No, I can’t change them. I will have to live with the fact that I knew my father was up to something, and I knew what he was capable of-”

“Did you, though?” she asked. Her heart was pounding suddenly and she took slow breaths to try to control it. “I don’t think anyone really believes other people are capable of such - ruthlessness.”

His mouth twisted. “I’d like to say I didn’t, that it was a surprise. But it wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t up to you.”

“Maybe it was.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Not the point. Point is that I’m beginning to see how pervasive, how deep the wounds run-”

“I’m not fucking wounded-”

His eyes flashed to hers. “You are. I am. Those boys are.”

“They’re not,” she cried out.

“Kate. I only mean-”

“They’re not. It’s not too late. I-”

“No, baby, I don’t mean that. It’s not too late, honey. Not one bit. You did everything for them. You did more than any - it should never have come to that, and I’m sorry, but I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep this from ruining all of our lives. Do you understand?”

She swallowed and crossed her arms over her chest. “No.” 

He huffed and lifted up from the map, and she took a step back. He stopped; she gritted her teeth at her involuntary move, took a purposeful stride towards the door and the night beyond.

“Kate.”

She stopped before the door opened, turned her head to look at him.

“I love you.”

She closed her eyes and gripped the push bar of the door, wishing desperately that she’d been faster.

“You don’t have to say or do anything. It’s not a claim on you. It’s just a fact. Keep it in mind when you consider what you have, what you’ve got on your side. You’re not alone in this.”

She could see the beckoning darkness just beyond the windows, and somewhere past that, the boys were hidden from her view. 

“That’s the problem though,” she said finally. “Isn’t it? If I were alone, I wouldn’t have to keep going.” She took a breath and let it go, and then she pushed open the door.

Castle caught it with a grip, his hand between hers on the push bar. He hauled the door back into its frame and she was trapped.

“You have to keep going,” he growled. “I am not going to let you stop.”

She closed her eyes and focused on keeping her spine straight. “I wish you would. You’re good with them; you know what’s going on with them, what they’d need. You should take the boys and leave me here,” she said in a rush, forcing it out. And then the lies, which always came so easily, “I’d be okay. I’d make it. I’d-”

“Never.” He gripped her shoulder and twisted her around, pressing his body against hers so that her spine hit the bar across the door. “I wouldn’t be okay. I would never be okay if I left you here.”

“You’d figure it out. You-”

“You’re not dying.”

As edicts went, it was predictably high-handed. But it was also a death sentence. She didn’t know how to live, and if dying was off-limits, she was trapped here, haunting the earth.

“Don’t fucking quit now,” he growled. Her eyes snapped open. He looked furious. “After everything, you’re going to let him win?”

“Reverse psychology won’t-”

“It’s not a trick. It’s the truth. You quit now and he got what he wanted. He’s got two boys to carry on his fucking legend, to further his agenda, and you tossed out like the trash. Your life serving his purposes.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because this isn’t you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Yes, I do.”

She shoved him away from her. And he went, stumbling, obviously surprised, and she did it again, the heels of her hands catching his chest and violently forcing him away from her even as he tried to come back.

“You don’t know me,” she gritted out. “You have no idea.”

He had a hand over his heart, rubbing the place she’d no doubt bruised him. 

Kate spun on her heel and opened the door, walked out into the night.

\-----

This time, he followed. He caught up to her, he didn’t hesitate this time.

He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back to him. Her eyes flared with fight or flight, but he gripped the back of her neck and crashed his mouth down to hers.

She fought.

But not against him, she fought into him. Her body surged into his, an arm snagging him around the neck and clamping tight even as their lips collided. She groaned and bared her teeth to his, biting at his tongue when he stroked inside her mouth. He released her arm only to grip her ass and haul her against him, the force of his need insistent at her abs.

He let her fight, welcomed her fight. She was back; she was coming back to him.

He crushed her against his chest and battled her mouth, kneading her ass in his hands and rocking her hips into him at his own pace, ignoring all strictures on place and time and healing. Didn’t matter; not when she was so desperate, not when he knew she was still trying to scrabble out of the darkness.

He felt the sharp burst of need sock him in the gut and he broke from her mouth, holding her away.

Kate was panting at his cheek, her body writhing as she palmed him, working his cock in her hand in the open air, his brother and the boys not but yards away.

“Back,” he rasped. “Back of the - building. Kate.”

“Yes.” Her voice was dark; she was the one hauling him around the side of the bathrooms into the deeper darkness. Her hands were quick, her fingers deadly, stroking him to his balls and fondling him as she moaned at his throat, nipping with her teeth.

“Harder,” he growled.

Her hand curled around him, chafing roughly as his hips thrust. He sucked on her cheek where he could find her, dragged his lips to her mouth, thrusting his tongue inside as he jerked his hips in time. She breathed soft noises into his kiss, little encouragements, her excitement jolting his.

“Fuck me, baby, you’re so hot,” he moaned. She hummed her approval and pressed her body harder into his side, riding his thigh, breasts crushed to his chest. Castle felt the cool air of the night on his balls and her fingers sliding up and down his shaft, her mouth against his jaw and his lips and his throat, hungry for him.

She bit his ear and uttered his name like a curse. He moaned and tilted his head back to the brick, fisting a knot of her hair at her neck as he gripped her tighter. 

“Kate,” he warned. “Kate.”

He orgasmed before he could say anything more, but she rubbed his cock as he did, milking him so that his seed shot hard out of his body. She was a writhing demon in his arms, but her body was angled away, at his side, and when he slumped back, his cock pulsing weakly now, she held him until it was done.

Castle opened his eyes.

Kate released his cock gently, and brought her hand up to her mouth. Her tongue darted out and licked the webbing of her thumb, curling around and cleaning the traces of his come.

“Fuck,” he croaked.

She suckled her skin and then brought her hand down to his cock again, a brush of her thumb over his head as if checking for more before she tucked him back inside his pants. She arranged him inside his briefs, slowly used both hands to zip and button him.

His hands were shaking and he placed them on her hips to hide it. Her face was inscrutable; she seemed unmoved by any of her own lust. He slowly slid his arms around her back and brought her against his chest, buried his face in her hair, inhaling sharply.

Her arm snaked around his neck. She seemed to be holding on to him.

“Don’t let me hurt you,” he whispered.

“No,” she murmured back. He didn’t know what kind of answer that was. He loved her desperately, and he was afraid he was no better than his father.

“Don’t let me be the one to hurt you,” he begged.

Her fingers smoothed the back of his neck. “No, stop,” she murmured. “Don’t ruin this.”

He shut up.

She stayed leaning against him, her cheek to his shoulder, her nose nudging his jaw as she breathed. Her fingers playing with his hair.

He was going to keep her. He was going to make her stay.

He was no different from his father.

\-----

She paused on the edge of the sidewalk, resisting the nudge of his hand against the small of her back. He waited with her, not asking questions she couldn’t answer anyway, dropping his hand to give her a little space.

He was a good man. He didn’t deserve this.

“I don’t want to get back in the car,” she said. “Not just yet.”

“Sure.”

She turned to look at him over her shoulder. Just that easy?

Castle smiled and walked ahead of her, moseying out to the grass and the boys wrestling each other. Just that easy, apparently.

Kate let out a breath and followed, her ballet flats no match for acorns and small sticks, the texture of the lawn under her feet. She stopped at a picnic table bathed in red-silver moonlight, and she bent down to pull her shoes off, placing her feet in the cool grass.

She wriggled her toes and rocked back on her heels, feeling the grass balding here under the tree by the table, the little sticks and fallen branches with leaves, the bits of broken acorn, pebbles. She watched her footing carefully as she stepped forward; a picnic bench meant people and their trash - broken glass, cigarette butts, fast food wrappers, dog poop.

But there was none of that. The grass was thicker out under the moonlight. The clouds had cleared and the moon was a fingernail picking at the covered dark sky. She found the boys with Colin and Castle, their giggles both exhausted and beautiful in their helpless fun. 

James spotted her first, and he got taken to the ground by Wyatt for his distraction. But he was quick to wriggle away, and he pushed himself up to his feet with both hands, came running to her. Kate knelt down on the grass and opened her arms to him, wrapping him up in an embrace, being purposeful to kiss him, kiss both cheeks and the soft pudge of his neck.

“Hey, baby,” she murmured into his ear. Wyatt was crowding into her now too, worming his way into her arms, and she poured her attention out on him as well, kisses intended to make up for all this time without.

She was going to kiss their cheeks until she couldn’t. For as long as she had them. They deserved to feel how much she loved them. They deserved more, but this was at least something she could give them.

“Mama, Mama, Mama,” Wyatt babbled against her cheek. James was humming, almost like singing, and she put them away from her, standing them on their feet.

“Play for a little while longer,” she told them. Not sure they knew, or understood. “Go play, guys. Work it all out. We’ll be in the car for-” She stopped, glancing up to Castle who had wandered close too. 

“A couple more hours at least,” Castle nodded.

“Hear that? A few more hours. So how about you guys run off all your silly energy?” 

The boys didn’t move.

She nudged them both, but they only circled around her, colliding into each other at her back, giggling, and falling into her. She reached back and caught them, growling at one and dragging the boy into her lap - it was James. He laughed and she realized she hadn’t heard him quite so bright and joyful before.

Wyatt tried to climb her back, his arms hooking around her neck, and Castle ducked down to grab him.

“No,” she said, an arm back to hold Wyatt there. “No, he’s fine.” She could breathe. She could feel his little toes digging into her ribs.

“You won’t try to lift-”

“No,” she promised. “I remember. If I tear stitches, I’ll leave a mess for you to clean out of that nice car.”

“That’s not funny,” he said, frowning at her.

She released James to slap Castle in the chest with the back of her hand. “Funny as I get right now. Love it or leave it.”

His face softened; he caught her hand at his chest and lifted her knuckles to his lips for a kiss. “Love it,” he breathed. “I love it.”

She sighed, ignoring him, taking her hand back to place it on James’s stomach, bouncing him in her lap. Wyatt got a knee at her ribs and squeezed to hang on, and she laughed, her other hand coming around to clutch at Wyatt’s wrist, holding him there and keeping him from strangling her.

James wriggled up and stood on her thigh, reached past her to pat Wyatt on the back. The two boys babbled to each other, and she grinned wider, glad to hear it.

“What are you guys saying,” she murmured, kissing James on the cheek. Wyatt cackled and his mouth came to her ear, like he was kissing her too. Wyatt pushed up with both feet, and then he came tumbling over her shoulder, just that fast.

She had both boys in her lap now, squirming and giggling, though she noticed that Wyatt was again the more vocal one, the one doing most of the giggling and squealing. James laughed from time to time, but he was more subdued. 

He grinned though. And when he saw her looking, that grin melted into an absolutely adorable shy smile, like he’d been caught out. Sometimes he even ducked his face against her, hiding in her shirt or neck. 

He did again, and she cupped her hand at the back of his head, kissed the crown of his hair. James wriggled harder into her and slumped at her side, tucked under her armpit.

Wyatt climbed out of her lap and into Castle’s, lying on his stomach with his knees drawn up and his cheek on Castle’s thigh. She glanced over at him and saw the stunned surprise on his face, how he hesitated out of shock before lowering his hands to Wyatt’s back. He began to make slow, soothing circles, and he hunched over to kiss Wyatt’s temple.

Her heart fluttered, weak and small, in her chest.

Castle’s head lifted; he rotated his wrist and frowned. His eyes came up to her. “You okay?”

Damn watch. “Fine,” she sighed. “I’m fine. I guess the boys have worn themselves out.”

“Yeah.”

We should go.

But neither of them said it; they just sat on the lawn and held a boy each, and after a long moment of not saying it, Kate leaned her shoulder against his arm and let out a sighing breath.

The moon was pretty.

She wasn’t sure where Colin had gone, but he had left them alone.

“I don’t want to die,” she said finally. “At least - not most of the time.”

She could hear Castle’s sharp intake beside her. The moon flirted with the clouds. He brought a hand to her knee and squeezed. “The other times? Will you tell me?”

“No,” she murmured. Only honest.

“Oh, Kate.” A tighter squeeze. “Does it help when we - did that help? Touching me and making me come?”

She flushed bright red and felt the heat singe her guts. “I - yes. I guess it really did.” Something about the beauty on his face as he got desperate for her. As his eyes rolled back. Something about the erotic sound of her name barked out of his mouth when he couldn’t control himself.

“Then will you at least come find me? The other times. At least come and - and touch me.”

She swallowed. “Is that an open invitation to force you?”

He laughed and it startled Wyatt, the boy rousing only long enough to catch a glimpse of her before nestling back into Castle’s lap.

She smiled herself. “Well?”

“Yes,” Castle said then. Wry. Serious, but wry. “It was. Take me, Beckett. I’m yours.”

Well. That she could totally handle.

\-----

Castle drove the last three hours of their trip, Kate riding up front with him, her feet propped up on the dashboard while Colin slept in the back. The boys were knocked out too, Wyatt having fallen asleep in Castle’s lap before they’d even gotten back in the car, and James following soon after.

Kate wasn’t sleeping; he figured she was avoiding nightmares, and he understood. He wouldn’t say anything, but he hoped a real bed would entice her when they arrived.

Castle adjusted the air conditioning vent to hit his chest instead of his face, and he glanced over at Kate. She had goose bumps spreading across her arms, but she was listless in the seat, didn’t seem to notice the chill. Her eyes dragged across the passenger window, staring out at the landscape as it passed in a blur.

He turned down the air a notch, sat back in his seat, eyes on the road again. The clouds had covered the moon once more; they had left the rest area just in time it seemed. Fat drops spattered here and there on the windshield, but he had yet to use his wiper blades. 

When they turned off the interstate, Kate rolled down her window.

Castle glanced sharply her way, but she unfurled her fist from beneath her chin, pushed her fingers out into the air, creating drag. She must have felt his eyes on her, because she looked his way. “I - you don’t mind if I-”

“I don’t mind at all,” he said quickly. “Smells good. The rain and burning ozone.”

“Mm.” She had turned back to the trees. Castle took his cue from her and fixed his eyes on the road before them, a country highway without many signs and random intersecting roads. This was always the part of the drive where he had to concentrate - their turn was easy to miss.

After a few more miles in the dark, with only the sound of the wind whipping around the car, he risked a glance her direction. She had an elbow on the door, her hand riding the wind, and she suddenly took in a deep breath and brought her fingers to her mouth, painted rain across her lips.

Castle swallowed hard and forced himself too look at the road.

“I forgot about rain,” she murmured.

He didn’t dare breathe, afraid to dispel whatever magic this was that had her talking.

“I missed the sun, missed the grass, had dreams about baseball games and the inside of my room, my own bed... but I forgot entirely to miss the rain.”

He glanced at her, the trail of her fingers over her lips as if feeling the words before they came out.

“But I must have, somewhere in there. And the way it smells...”

“Yeah,” he said, hollow. Gutted out by her. In the best and worst ways.

“It’s going to take a long time, isn’t it?”

He let out a hard breath, collapsing. “Yeah,” he choked out, nodding. “I think it is.”

She sighed, and he saw her lay her head on her arm, her eyes closing against the wind. 

“That’s okay,” he told her. “However long it takes - it’s okay. It’s worth it.”

“It just makes me tired to think of it all,” she said.

Tired wasn’t good; tired was one step from depressed, one step from bleak. He wanted back the girl in the grass, laughing with the boys, or the quiet girl holding James in the loose circle of her arms as she whispered made up stories about the moon. 

“Don’t think of it all,” he said finally. “Just think about right now. Can you do right now?”

She splayed her fingers into the wind, as if trying to resist the drag, the force of air over her palm and the inexorable hurtle of the car forward. If she was making some kind of metaphor, creating it out of the air, he wished she would stop.

“Kate. Right now. The smell of the rain. The beautiful night and the moon. Being sleepy but not tired, the boys worn out and happy and sleeping peacefully in sight. Right now. Just do now.”

Her hand closed into a fist, her hair whipping around her head now as the wind caught the strands and teased them loose. It was beginning to tangle, but she didn’t move to lay it down, fix it, press it back.

Castle lifted a hand from the wheel and caught her arm, tugged until he brought her free hand out from between her thighs. He caught her fingers and laced theirs together, dragged her hand over to his side so that she had to come with it.

She lifted from the door, out of the wind, and he knew his own heart was racing, desperation and fierceness clawing in his throat. Fierce to love her, have her love him back. He couldn’t help that. But he could offer her him.

She shook off his hand.

And then she crawled over the center console where Castle had stuffed their rain jackets just in case, and she curled up with her head on his thigh. She couldn’t possibly be comfortable like that, not with the console digging into her ribs under the jackets, but he laid his hand on her head and smoothed his fingers around and around her eyes and nose and mouth.

He felt the trip of her heartbeat in the pulse under her jaw and he combed her hair back down. She stayed there, pressed over the console, her fist against his thigh.

He kept his eyes on the road, mindful of the turn-off. Through her still-open window, he could smell the approach of the thunderstorm.

\-----

She wasn’t asleep.

The center console dug into her ribs and constricted her breath, but the heat of his thigh under her cheek and the strength of his hip at the back of her head kept her together. If she could just curl up tight enough, then the real world wouldn’t get to her here, couldn’t, not with Castle.

She was already depending on him. She was already factoring him into her plans. That couldn’t be good, not in the long run, but right now she didn’t have the energy to stop.

She must have drifted, coasting on the cool mist of the night, because the car stopped before she expected it. Castle’s hand came back to the top of her head and combed through her hair, laid at her ear.

“We’re here,” he said quietly. “You ready?”

Kate pushed her fist into his thigh and shifted to sit up, grunting when her ribs creaked and her spine popped. Castle let her go, and his smile was confident and winning and not a bit false. He must feel that way all the time; he must really feel it, that sense of I can do this; I can make this happen.

She wondered if she’d lost that. She used to feel that way, that life would be made over into her own image. She even felt that way recently. With Black, with the scalpel in her hand that moment before she’d lunged into him. She had known she would do it, that it could be done or nothing.

Or nothing.

She’d do it or she’d die. That was all she’d thought. Maybe that wasn’t quite the same as Castle’s surety and certainty of self-confidence.

It was the dark side of the coin.

“Kate?”

“Ready,” she said, even if she wasn’t. She shifted back to the passenger seat and scraped the hair off her face, wishing for a rubber band. She flipped down the visor and looked at herself in the mirror, wondering about what she must be like now.

A rubber band and eye liner, thick. Mascara. She’d feel better knowing she looked like she wanted to feel. Didn’t everyone feel better like that? 

“Kate?” his voice came to her like, what are you doing?

“I’m making a list,” she said, answering the question he wouldn’t ask. “A shopping list. Since we didn’t make it today.”

“I didn’t think the babies would need to stop every damn hour,” he growled.

She laughed, a fast and furtive thing, like her own body was trying to sneak things past her. 

“We’ll go tomorrow,” he said decisively. “Have to anyway - no groceries. Damn.”

“It’s okay,” she told him, flipping the mirror up. “I want to go too.”

“Yeah? Huh. Well, I guess that means all of us,” he said. “Another trip that should take thirty minutes will now take five times as long.”

She kicked at his thigh for that, but his lips were twitching. He was trying to be funny. Or amusing. Something. She just huffed her eyes at him and opened the passenger door, ready for a real bed and tucking the boys in. 

She really was looking forward to that. Castle had brought their bed, and she maybe couldn’t lay them in it, but she could kneel right beside the railing and kiss their faces, stroke a finger over their noses to make their eyes close, lull them into sleep. She could sing them their moon song and whisper prayers over them as they drifted off, and then she could watch them for a little while, watch them sleep undisturbed.

She wanted that so badly.

When she put her feet on the ground, her bare toes hit the gravel of the driveway and she winced, leaning back against the frame of the vehicle to take the weight off her vulnerable soles. She pulled her shoes from the floorboards and tucked her feet into the flats, though rather pointless since the ballet shoes didn’t have any support.

She closed the door and glanced to the back where Colin was already unbuckling Wyatt from his car seat, Castle on the other side doing the same to James.

And then she turned around and caught sight of the cabin.

“Oh my God,” she gasped. She was immobile for half a second and then she scrambled around the front of the SUV to see the whole thing.

It wasn’t a damn cabin. It was a castle.

The castle seemed to be a natural formation from the very woods itself, round stone walls and crenellations along the top battlements, windows in the same architectural arches though much wider than the usual narrow arrow-slits. The house was the keep itself, though a low stone wall jutted out, a wall she could see as it wound through the thick trees down to the bridge.

There was a bridge. 

Made of wood with metal trusses and stone walls, it was its own parapet across a swollen and rushing creek. Kate stepped up to the open gate on this side of the bridge, neatly flanked by its stone walls, and peered down the wooden walk to the front door itself.

It was wide, two doors really, and made of a rich, unstained redwood with wrought iron hinges and details. The knocker was black wrought iron as well, and she could see the machicolation jutting out above the door. This one looked more like a flower box than a murder hole, and it held red geraniums that offset the wood of the door and the black of the hinges.

“Do you like it?”

Kate turned abruptly and saw Colin standing before her, still on the gravel drive with Wyatt in his arms. He looked shy about the house, the round tower and the walls and the stone, but he also looked to be at peace here in a way he hadn’t since she’d met him.

“It’s amazing,” she said truthfully. “I’m - stunned.”

Colin studied her face for a moment and then nodded, coming forward to stand beside her just on the first row of stones at the gate. “The creek usually isn’t that high. Must be all the rain. When it dries out, you’ll see it’s okay.”

“Oh, for the boys.”

“And there’s a wall, you know. They’ll be fine within the walls. Rough terrain, but they can’t get to the creek if they’re playing inside the walls.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. Not because she’d thought of the creek as a danger at all, but because Colin had, and wanted her to know.

“It’s 3,000 square feet. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms. A divided bonus room at the top of the tower - at least, it looks like it’s the top of the tower, but really it’s open floor plan all across both levels.”

“It’s beautiful.” She looked at him again, how his face shone even in the darkness. She could only see shadows and stone and the glint of moon off the windows, the red of the flowers, but it was enough to know. “This is your baby.”

He nodded. “A castle. Where it’s safe.”

Castle. Of course.

The man in question came up at their backs with James in his arms and two bags thrown over his shoulder. “Cool, huh? Come on, don’t just stand here. Walk across the moat and go on in. It’s awesome inside.”

Kate turned into him and gripped one of the straps to hang on to her balance, went up on her toes to kiss his mouth, fierce and fast. When she landed back on her feet, she ignored the dumfounded look on his face and moved to walk down the drawbridge to his castle.

\----

Through the red double doors, the inside of the brothers’ castle was gorgeous. Stone walls and clean wood beams that gave over to wide windows overlooking the lush and verdant forest. The kitchen and living room were on this main floor, open to each other, open to the amazing view that Kate could see from the entry.

The foyer was an open grey wall, a stone wall, and a bench seat with four cubbies for storage. Spacious, and when Kate walked forward the stone was cold under her flats. She put out a hand and ran it over the gray wall until she hit stone again, but it was smoother than she’d expected, as if it had been in the bottom of the creek, weathered by the constant motion of water.

“What do you think?” Castle said, carrying James behind her. The boy had been asleep when Castle had gotten him out of the car, but Kate couldn’t turn around to check now. Not when the whole place lay before her.

“It’s - just beautiful,” she murmured, rubbing the stones with her fingers as she walked inside. The ceiling was high above her head - what was that called? vaulted. Vaulted ceilings, smoothly white, with redwood beams periodically spaced. The kitchen was modern and sleek with its dove grey walls, white subway tile backsplash, and white cabinets. She trailed her fingers over the fridge, silver in the overhead recessed lighting, the counters a cool and pale grey and white marble.

It was beautiful. So beautiful. 

It was a home. She was surprised by that, by how easy it was to feel comfortable here in this dark forest with its pale white ceilings and smooth stone walls.

“Blue Carrara marble,” Colin said proudly. She didn’t know what that meant except it had to be expensive, and she withdrew her fingers, moving on into the living room.

Males had decorated this, obviously, but it was tasteful and beautiful, and she was astonished at how the simplicity felt welcoming. Not austere, no; it was two or three klicks away from austere, but on that same end of things.

The couch was low to the ground but comfortable looking, brown leather, overstuffed, well-worn. She dipped her knees to touch the arm of one end and felt how smooth it was too, buttery soft. It looked like something from someone’s office, or a library, and when she glanced up, she saw two floor-to-ceiling bookcases made of redwood against the grey stone wall. Between them was a massive and somewhat out-of-place looking television.

She grinned and turned her head.

Castle and Colin had followed her to the living room and now they seemed to be waiting for her pronouncement. 

“You’re right. This is pretty awesome. But I’ve only seen two rooms. Where’s the rest of it?”

They grinned, twin looks of pleased superiority, each holding a boy. She grinned back and held out her hands, both of them, to the brothers.

Castle took hers first, immediately, and she wriggled her fingers at Colin. He gave her a calculating look but he slowly took her fingers. She tugged them both towards her and turned around, loosening her grip enough to move before heading forward again, dragging them behind her.

Colin came ahead with Wyatt and moved along the windows to a hall she hadn’t noticed, abutting against the side of the bookcase. She followed him with Castle at her back, walking as if into the night itself, a wall of windows as they headed towards an open redwood door.

When they went through, she could see the rounding edge of the front tower here in this room. The bed was king-sized and had the view of the windows, its headboard resting snugly against the stone tower. It looked like the king’s room. Two walls were made of those river-stones, textured but smooth, and the last was more glass windows. A large fireplace was set into the stone, the grate black with soot and ash, and the massive wooden mantel held a broad framed photograph of a wolf in black and white. Incongruous, that sharp stare, but she knew immediately-

“This is yours,” she said, turning to Castle. He flushed and scraped a hand over his head, glancing around at the room. She smiled. “I like your bed.” Dark squares, silver trim. “Hope it’s as comfy as it looks.”

“Yeah,” Castle croaked. “It is.”

She bit her bottom lip and ducked her head against him, saw the curve of James’s skull against Castle’s shoulder. She leaned in and kissed his warm forehead. 

“Kate? The extra room is right up there.”

“What?” She lifted her head and looked up, and she saw the balcony running along the wall, across from the fireplace. “Up there?” And then she saw the stairs against the wall, cut into the multi-faceted stone so that it blended cleverly, hardly able to be seen unless you looked right at it. 

“Colin’s room is off the foyer,” Castle said. “And you can get to it by the bonus room too, but it’s a little ways.”

“Show me,” she murmured, surprise pushing her forward without him.

Colin grinned and motioned to Castle and then he walked out of the door they’d come in, hurrying with Wyatt in his arms. She had a moment of tugging regret, leaning back for the boy, but he was out of sight before she could even move.

Castle nudged her back. “Up the stairs. I’ll show you.”

She moved up the wide stone steps, going slowly as her thigh muscles protested. She was still tired despite the near-constant sleep, though it felt good to do some work.

Castle scratched her back as he followed her up; she felt it curl down her spine in a lovely kind of way, distracting enough so that when she got to the top, she almost didn’t see it.

The top room was - was amazing. She put her hand to the intricate, carved railing that spanned the balcony and stared. The windows showed through the tower keep, an expansive view of dark trees and the dizzying bridge. The room itself was really just a kind of lookout, with lots of space and tall ceilings and those beautiful wood beams. Two leather recliners were up here, with another television, but the view took her breath.

“This is... wow.”

“Yeah, isn’t it?” he murmured. Castle took her hand, shifting James in his other arm, and he pulled her gently towards the windows. “We never could figure out what we wanted to do up here. There are two of them. We - always thought eventually Alex and Ben would come and they’d have these rooms up here. But...”

“But?”

“Alex and Ben aren’t... we never could trust it,” he sighed. She heard a reluctant truth there, and she wished she remembered more of what had happened in that apartment.

“So you have it all to yourselves.”

“Yeah, we do. All to ourselves,” Castle nodded, his lips brushing the top of James’s head. And then seemed to rouse. “Come on. I’ll show you how it connects.”

He took her hand again and as they passed the two leather recliners, she saw the wall where the television hung was that same cool grey. To either side of the tv were two framed photos, as tall as she was, of bare branches in winter. Done in the same black and stark white of the one in Castle’s bedroom and she wondered if the photographer was the same person.

Colin. “He took those,” she murmured as they passed. “Didn’t he?”

“Colin did, yeah.”

She swallowed and touched the wooden railing before the glass window. The tops of the tower’s arched windows still soared feet above her head, but the stone wall was beautiful and smooth, giving the massive space a somehow warm feel. She saw the hallway leading off and realized it was a kind of enclosed parapet, just under the crenellations she’d seen from the ground.

“Through here, Kate,” he said, taking her hand again. She squeezed his fingers and followed, the stone wall on her right and the cool, grey wall on her left, but wider than her own wingspan. Nothing felt close or cramped here, nothing was narrow or overhanging. There was just space.

Space for four grown men to enjoy a retreat from the world. But only two had ever come here, only two.

And now two boys. And her.

“See?” he said, lifting their clasped hands to gesture before him.

Kate came up at his back and saw the second room, a mirror to the first, the second rounded tower, the twin sentinels of the keep. Two more leather recliners, another huge flatscreen television, and the arched, cathedral windows.

Only instead of being impressed, she was sad. It was lonely, this huge castle fortress in the woods, jutting from rock and river like an abandoned soldier. 

Kate laid her cheek to Castle’s shoulder blade. On Colin’s side, the bonus room at the top of the stone steps held two more prints, both of these the city skyline. It brought her sharply back to everything missing, everything gone.

“The balconies are hand-carved,” Castle said. “I know a man in Peru. And Colin did all of the art hanging up - he’s very good, but he doesn’t believe me. While we’re here, I’m sure he’ll have his camera out; he’ll want to photograph you.”

She stiffened, surprised more than anything, but a trickle icy water slid down her spine. “Photograph me?”

“He doesn’t like faces,” Castle said. “He just - here, let me show you his room.”

She didn’t know about that.

But Castle was already tugging her by the hand towards the end of the gorgeously-intricate wooden railing, and the flight of stone steps. Before she even descended, she could see out into Colin’s bedroom, and it was jarringly different from Castle’s - cluttered with things, but nothing she could understand the purpose or function of. He had stacks of prints leaning against the glass windows, and even now he’d gotten distracted from the tour by these, sorting through them, completely empty-handed.

He had a fireplace as well, but inside the grate were odd sculptures or perhaps just junk. One corner of the room held a pile of mechanic’s tools and engine parts, while a massive stoplight sat in the other corner. The smooth round stone wall held an off-center king-sized bed, and it was unmade. 

“Colin,” Castle chided. “Where’d you put Wyatt down at?”

“He’s asleep on the bed; he’s fine,” Colin muttered, still thumbing through his prints.

Kate glanced to the bed and saw that one of those irregular bumps of bedding was in fact her son - her son, God - and she relaxed. Instead of letting the obsessive compulsion to check on him override her, she stepped forward to the wall of windows and touched one of the large prints.

“May I?”

Colin grunted but stepped back. She watched him for a moment, but then Castle stepped between them, acting almost like a shield, and it did the trick. She dropped her head and began looking at his photography.

Oh. He didn’t like faces. One of the back of Castle nailing a crossbeam into a structure - probably this one - the forest in a riot of growth behind him, like a jungle. Order from chaos. Her fingers itched to touch his bulging shoulders in the picture. The next was a dead frog and she recoiled, striking Castle as she backed up.

“Shh,” he murmured, his free hand against her shoulder, stilling her.

Kate swallowed and flipped to the next one, easing when she saw city skyline in the background - and in focus - while the foreground was a black and white blur. After a moment she made out the shape of a woman, dark hair and Asian features in profile, but even that was difficult to see. 

On and on through the prints until she got to the last one, and every single image had carefully stayed away from faces. A study of knees. A triptych of women’s shoulders and necks, hair up and out of the way. Streetwalkers and their lighted cigarettes, old-looking hands. A woman with her legs spread, cunt on display, only her lower half and nothing else.

“Colin?” she asked, turning and moving out of Castle’s touch. His brother frowned fiercely as if expecting censure. “They’re terribly bleak, and sad, and I love them.”

His eyes blanked. For a long moment, there was just the sound of James breathing noisily in his sleep on Castle’s shoulder and then Colin let out a kind of croak.

Castle took her hand again.

Colin nodded, his throat bobbing. “Yes, they are. Thank - thank you.”

She smiled, trying to go for encouraging, but she wasn’t sure what it was, or what she felt.

She just knew she couldn’t look at those photos again. Not feeling like this. Not now.

But in eight weeks... she was going to make herself. At the end of this, she was going to confront those photos again, go through all of them, everything he had here in all these stacks, and she was going to ask for the very very saddest one she could find.

To remind her.

It would have to be enough.

\-----


	18. Chapter 18

Castle placed James on the bed with his brother and brushed his hand over the boy’s back. Kate had followed Colin out of the room to walk back through along the main level, and he hoped she was unpacking the two duffle bags he’d brought in - not trying to unload the car - like he’d asked her to.

But he took another moment, squatting down beside the bed to watch the two boys, their faces slack with sleep, bodies melting into the sheets. (He hoped they were clean; never knew with Colin.) When Castle gently touched Wyatt’s forehead, his face crinkled up as if in reflex, as if trying to pull up from sleep but unable. 

Castle withdrew his hand and instead leaned over, softly kissed each forehead. They smelled like french fries and Kate, that skin and salt smell of her, and he liked that they both had taken it on as well. Probably though, there should be baths and clean pajamas and all of that... 

Later. Not right now. They could figure out normal once Kate felt better.

Castle stood swiftly and headed out of Colin’s room, down the short hall that mimicked his own until he came out at the other side of the kitchen. He closed the door after him and found Kate standing in the foyer with her head tilted back, studying the murder hole above the door.

“Hey,” he said softly, catching her attention.  
She turned with a smile, one of discovery and pleasure, he thought. Her body came into his as if it was the most natural thing in the world and he put his arm around her, hugging her against him. 

“Hey,” she said back. “It’s a mirror image of your side. I just figured it out. The curtain walk along the top of the wall - it’s enclosed of course, but that’s what it is, right? Along what would be the parapet?”

“Yes,” he said, grinning at her. “You know an awful lot of castle terminology for a lay person.”

She flushed and turned her eyes away from him. “But your room and Colin’s are in either tower, the two towers, with this part here - living room and kitchen - as the keep, even though there’s no second floor.”

“Well, yes, technically the keep is supposed to be the tallest point of the castle, a tower itself, where the people can entrench themselves in case of attack. But we wanted a house on the inside, so we raised the ceilings in here to give it the height of a keep, and made our tower rooms two story.”

“Except your rooms themselves aren’t two story-”

“Well, they are,” he said quickly. “See, the bonus room takes up half the tower, and its wall comes down as stone into my bedroom, which also takes up half the tower. You can see over into my room from the balcony of the bonus room, but there are two levels.”

She chewed on her lip and he could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to put all the blueprints into place. “Okay, then what about the space in the tower under the bonus room? Did you just... wall it off?”

His lips twitched. “Nope. We didn’t. They’re - secret rooms.”

She spun around, her face lighting up. “They are?”

“You figured it out,” he grinned. “But I bet you won’t figure out how to get in them.”

“You each have one, under the bonus room.”

He nodded. 

“That’s so cool,” she said, coming up on her toes and pushing her body against his. It was effortless, the way she seduced him, like she didn’t even know she was doing it, being so damn sensual his balls ached. 

His heart ached. “I’m glad you like it.”

“And I will so have it figured out. Just give me time.”

“You have all the time in the world,” he reminded her, promising, as he leaned in and brushed his lips to her cheek. “I’m gonna get the boys’ bed from the car and set it up in my room upstairs. If you unpack stuff as I bring it in, that would help me-”

“Of course. In between time, I’m studying that stone wall for your secret door.”

He grinned. “You do that. Just dump all our clothes into the dresser for now.”

Her eyes flashed and her mouth pursed. “The closet is behind that stone wall too, isn’t it? And you’re not going to show me because I’d figure out how to get into the little room.”

“Mm, maybe so.”

“You’re a big bully,” she declared, punching his shoulder.

He made a hurt face, pouted at her. “I’m the bully? Who’s punching whom here?”

She cracked up, giggling at him, burying her face in his neck as she wrapped her arms around him. Three hours ago, she’d been talking about letting herself die and now she was warm and happy and teasing him, hugging him as she pressed closer.

It just proved that neither state was permanent, not her bleak misery and not her giggling happiness either. She hadn’t yet found normal, and her body was still broken down by the elixir, and it was just going to take time.

They had time; they had it. Even if she didn’t want it, he had it to give. 

His father was dead. There was nothing else in this world he needed to do, nowhere else he ought to be than here.

Castle cupped her cheek and tilted her head up to look at her; she flushed pink and pretty and he brought his lips to meet hers.

She was sweet, at first. Sweet and tender and maybe a little bit awestruck. And then not. And then it was her teeth catching his bottom lip and her growl in his mouth and echoing in his throat as she pushed him back against the door frame leading to Colin’s room and ground her hips against his so that his cock pulsed and began to throb for her in time to the beat of his own fierce heart.

He caught her shoulders and forcibly removed her, breathing hard and staring at her even as she licked her bottom lip. He moaned and felt his knees weaken, and she caught him by the ears and kissed him again, not softly but not quite so desperate, like these kisses were promises for later.

“It’s late,” she husked against his open mouth. “Get the bed, I’ll be waiting.”

Bed. Waiting. All he heard. 

Her mouth burned across his once more and then she had gone.

\-----

Kate touched the stones, trailing her fingers over the mortar as she ascended the steps. She’d studied the wall for an hour, in between unpacking and Castle walking in. She hadn’t figured it out, but she had found the closet, which meant, she thought, that the entrance to the secret room wouldn’t be in the stone wall. Not the same as the closet.

No, the closet was the decoy. She was pretty sure about that. Because Castle had grown up with Black as his father, and it wasn’t just fun and games. 

“Hey.”

She cleared the top of the stairs and found Castle working on setting up the babies’ bed. “Hey. How’s it going?”

“Almost done.” He was lying on one shoulder, turning screws in the base, and he gave her a glance over his shoulder as she approached. “You find it?”

“No,” she muttered.

He grinned and she kicked his calf and settled down on the floor beside him. She could see a strip of skin where his shirt had ridden up and she reached out with the tips of her fingers and touched him.

Castle jolted hard and she laughed, chewing her bottom lip as he let out a breath and carefully put down the screwdriver. And then he was on her, launching himself from the floor to tackle her and bring her down, his hand cradling her head so that it was just the weight and heat of his body crushing hers and the delicious pressure of his mouth.

She groaned and opened for him, spreading her thighs to wrap her legs around his hips. He kissed her like he’d been waiting not-so-patiently this whole time for just such a moment. She pushed her body into his and his hand found her stomach, stroking and teasing so that she was on fire with it.

“Hush, hush,” he hummed down her throat. “Hush, honey.”

“You make me crazy,” she growled, gripping his ears as he licked at her collarbones. His mouth nudged under her shirt and sucked at the slope of her breast. “You make me - so wild.”

“Only fair,” he growled. His teeth grazed her breast and then his head came up, his lips delicious and smudged from kissing her. She gripped his ears and pulled him back to her mouth, bright and soft kisses, startling them both.

His body shifted over hers, a hand coming down to stroke her flank to her knee, easing himself off of her. She sighed into his mouth and rolled with him, side by side, and felt his arm curl around her neck, his body adjusting against her hips.

“I should finish this damn bed so you and I can go to bed,” he muttered. He dropped a kiss against her lips and then another one. “Stop distracting me.”

She grinned and kissed him again, then pushed off the floor with one arm, sliding her knee over his side and shoving him to his back. She planted her hands on his shoulders and rocked her hips against him, just to see that flare of worry amidst the sparking want. She leaned in and kissed his lips, that soft and firm mouth under hers, felt his hands skating up and down her back under her shirt.

“Okay,” she said finally, moving her kiss over his cheek and down his jaw to his ear. “Okay. Finish the bed. I’m gonna lie down with the boys until you’re ready.”

She unmounted, sliding her knee against his groin and pressing just a little - only a little - and then she patted his chest and stood up. His fingers caught her ankle as she moved to leave him, sliding a thumb up her achilles, and then he released her. She pressed her toes into his ear as she left and he laughed and watched her go.

Kate wiggled her fingers at the top of the stairs and then headed back down to the bedroom. She stepped to the floor and glanced around his tower, the regal space - a masculine space - and the fireplace, the open closet, the dresser, the beautiful bed. The boys had been relocated here, Castle afraid they’d wake and pick up one of Colin’s junkyard scraps, and so she crawled into the bed with them.

They were both asleep. It was deep into night now, almost morning by the look of the sky, but she hadn’t been tired until this moment. She had gotten so absorbed in searching for the secret room that the exhaustion had melted away, like releasing a valve and having it wash down the drain.

She was tired now, but pleasantly, like after a long day, and she laid her head against Castle’s pillow and curled her knees up to touch James. Wyatt was sprawled at the foot of the bed - he’d moved there in his sleep - but James was compact and close in the center of the mattress.

She propped her head up on her hand, elbow digging into the bed, and she traced her fingers around James’s face, watching him sleep. She shifted her feet to touch Wyatt’s side, her knees bracketing James, and she let her eyes drift close.

Felt good here, in his castle tower. Felt good to have the night breaking up outside and the weary stretch of her muscles across her shoulders and back. Felt good the flutter in her quads as she’d climbed the stairs, and the hum of his mouth against her throat. It all felt so good. And right.

And eight weeks could be practically endless really. 

Endless.

\-----

Castle adjusted the bed to its lowest setting and then put his hands on the railing, shook it to be sure it would hold. He fitted the sheet across the mattress and patted the middle to test the bounce, and then smoothed it out with a flat hand. He got to his feet and eyed the leather recliners in front of the television.

The tv was wall-mounted and high enough that the boys wouldn’t be able to get to it. But the chairs were precarious, especially since James could climb so well. Castle put a hand on the back of one and it rocked backward. 

Kate might like the chairs in here though, and she could sit here with a boy on her lap and rock him. Castle could do the same in the other chair. So maybe they ought to stay.

Castle finished making the room ready, shutting the door to the hall and grabbing the pet-gate from where it leaned against the wall.

When he moved it to the gap at the top of the stairs, he could see Kate on the bed with the boys, asleep. He stood there a moment, watching, noting the rise of her chest and the deepness of her sleep, and then he squatted down again.

He had to work at the gate to get it to fit the space between the railing and the stone wall, measuring by eye and then unscrewing the extension poles to match. He lifted his head from time to time to be sure that he wasn’t waking anyone downstairs, but they hadn’t stirred.

When the gate was secure, Castle stood up once more and stepped over the gate, bringing his tools with him. He glanced over his shoulder to check that the room was clear, that he hadn’t left any tools behind, and then he went down the stairs silently. He pushed his tools into the kit and closed it up, set them on the highest shelf of his closet. He had a full wardrobe here, of course, but all that was hers barely took up the space of a drawer.

The two black duffle bags were neatly folded and lying on the bottom shelf of his closet organizer. She must have done that. He skimmed his shirt off over his head and tossed it to the floor, thought better of it. He opened a duffle bag and stuffed it inside, thinking it would work for now as a dirty clothes hamper.

He unbuttoned his pants and unzipped them, stepping out and shoving the pants into the duffle as well. He snapped the elastic of his boxer briefs and decided they should go too, and so he shed them as well and pushed them into the duffle. He stood naked in the closet just staring at all the clothes hanging there, the things he’d acquired over the years that stocked it now, and then he glanced over his shoulder.

He could see Kate on the bed, asleep, still wearing that damn sweatshirt and the black leggings she’d changed into back inside the facility. Fucking hell. 

Castle yanked a pair of sweatpants from the shelf and pulled them on, staring at the closet. He had a pair of plaid pajama pants that had ripped at the bottom; he could rip them a little more and-

Ripped pajama pants? Was that what it had come to?

Damn.

Castle took a fresh pair of boxers and a black t-shirt and he came back out to the bedroom. He left the clothes on the side table and glanced at the clock, almost three in the morning, and then he crawled into bed with her. He slid an arm around her waist, how small it was under the layers of the sweatshirt, and tucked his chin down against her neck.

He let out a breath and closed his eyes, though he wasn’t tired. He inhaled the scent of her body, the sensation of the warmth of her in his arms. Her hair was soft at his forehead and nose, and he wanted only to keep holding her. All night, until the end of things.

He slid his fingers open along her arm until he found the protruding bones of her wrist, and he gently drew her hand into his. He curled closer, listening to the regular rhythm of her breathing, alert as always to the thrum of her heart.

He wasn’t tired but he should sleep a little while the boys were, be sure he had enough in him for later, when they weren’t. Tomorrow, he was going to drive Kate to the outlet mall a few hours from here and make her indulge. Clothes, shoes, anything at all. The sweatshirt and leggings had to go; it killed him how she just hunkered down into the material, used it like a shield.

He slowly laced his fingers through hers and debated getting up, putting the boys to bed upstairs. Just not right now. Right now when it was quiet and he could hold her, when she wasn’t having a nightmare and he wasn’t trying to keep it in his pants. Right now when he could feel her heart beating and her breath tickling the back of his hand.

He hadn’t planned much farther than this. Get Kate here; get her here safely - and alive.

It was time to come up with a new plan. The elixir had to be balanced with her treatment; the boys had to nurse on schedule; Kate had to be convinced that this was worth it. Not just life itself, but him.

He was going to have to convince her that he was worth it.

\-----

Kate shivered on the edge of sleep and turned over, seeking heat, waking when she did. She opened her eyes and wormed closer to the man who’d been at her back, pressing her fingers into the nonexistent space between his ribs and the mattress, warming them.

“Hey,” he whispered. She closed her eyes and tucked her cold nose into the hollow of his throat. “Hey, love, you want to change into pajamas.”

“Cold,” she mumbled.

“We should get in under the covers,” he said. His hand stroked the back of her head and down through her hair. “What do you say? Time for pajamas?”

“Time’s it?” she muttered, burrowing her face deeper into him. 

“Hmm, looks like four.”

“Four,” she mumbled. “Too tired.”

“Okay, then let me pull down the sheets and get us all in under the covers. Boys might be cold too.”

“Boys?” She struggled to find awareness, to think through it, and then she realized she’d fallen asleep. “Oh, the boys.” Kate pushed off the mattress and sat up warily, blinking in the wash of pre-dawn light. Her head hurt. “Meant to put them to bed.”

She crawled forward on her hands and knees and found Wyatt at the foot, hovered over him. 

Castle caught her ankle and squeezed. “Not now, babe. No harm them sleeping with us tonight. Or the rest of this morning, whatever.”

“Where’s James?” she mumbled, shifting to sink back to her haunches. Castle released her ankle and came up beside her, this massive massive bed, and his hand came to the back of her neck and he kissed her ear.

“Curled against the headboard. Come on, you too. I’ll move Wyatt and pull the covers down. Warm you up.”

She blinked and slowly crawled up to join James, settling in with her back against the headboard. She laid a hand on the baby and watched Castle scoop up Wyatt, moving him easily without even waking him. Kate scooted back and tucked her toes under the comforter, that big grey square, and Castle stood up and brought her Wyatt.

He laid the boy beside her and she smiled at him, her exhaustion lapping at her like waves on the shore. Eroding her grain by grain. Castle leaned in and kissed her softly before pulling down the covers for them.

“You want to take off the sweatshirt?” he asked, sliding into bed with her. “I left a clean shirt next to you.”

She glanced over and saw the pile of clothes on his nightstand, but she was just too tired to make the effort. “I don’t stink or anything, do I?”

Castle chuckled, but his fingers came to the hem of the sweatshirt and then underneath. “No, love, you don’t stink. But under the covers like this - might get hot.”

“Help?” she said, letting out a sigh as her body tried to drag her down. “Help get it off-”

“Yeah, here,” he answered easily. His hands lifted the sweatshirt up and she raised her arms, let him work the material over her head. She closed her eyes against the fabric’s glide, and then the sweatshirt was off and her hair staticky around her face.

She gasped in surprise when he kissed her nose, laughed as she opened her eyes. He was grinning at her and she grinned back, catching the side of his face. Castle tossed the sweatshirt over the side of the bed and scooted down, patting the small space between them where Wyatt lay.

“No,” she said. “Move him. Over here, other side.” The king sized bed was huge, the mattress so wide that those two boys could have their own space and never touch them.

And Kate could draw Castle’s arm around her and stay warm.

“All right, hang on,” Castle finally said. He sat up again and slid his arms under Wyatt, and then he stepped around the foot of the bed and over to James’s side. He laid Wyatt down at the head beside his brother, and then he came back to her. “Now you happy?”

She grinned and patted the mattress, mimicking him, and he growled at her and jumped into bed, making her bounce and laugh at him. “Much better. Lay down with me.”

Castle caught his arm around her waist and wrestled her down with him, dragging her body against his own. Her face was splitting, her smile was so wide, and she lifted her hand to touch her fingers to the corner of his eye. He let her explore and then he turned his head and nipped at her fingers.

“Kiss me some more,” she murmured, curling her hand at the back of his neck. “Until I fall asleep.”

“Kissing you isn’t supposed to knock you out, Sleeping Beauty.”

She laughed softly and lifted her chin, eager for him, and he saw it and came down to lay a light kiss against her lips.

“Kiss me,” she insisted, breathing against his mouth.

“How about I tell you a story instead.” His lips dusted her jaw. “And a little of this.”

Did he mean the way he teased her with the phantom touch of him? “Okay, anything for this.”

He chuckled in her ear and it sent zips of electricity down to her guts. But he was right - kissing wouldn’t put her back to sleep. 

“Tell me a story, Rick Castle.”

He hummed and nipped lightly at her ear lobe. “Once upon a time there were four brothers.”

Her smile widened and she spread her palm at his back, tugging until his body dropped over hers, heavy and stabilizing.

She had no idea what else he spoke into her ear, what story he told, because she was already sinking into sleep.

\-----

When Kate woke, she had a little boy in her face, giggling and squirming as if he was trying to be quiet. She couldn’t help the smile that answered him back, and she shifted an arm up to touch his arm. Wyatt.

“Hey,” she croaked out, feeling very... well-rested. How long had she slept?

“Oh, shit, sorry.” Castle came to the bedside with James in one arm, and he scooped up Wyatt with another. “Wy, I told you no. Supposed to let your mom sleep.”

“I’m okay,” she murmured, pushing up on her hands and shifting to sit against the headboard. She scraped back her hair and blinked in the darkness. “What time is it?”

“About three. In the afternoon.”

“Holy shit.” Kate jerked upright and glanced behind her to the tower windows, realized there were heavy blackout curtains pulled down over all of them. “Oh. Wow. I missed - everything.”

“It’s fine. They had scrambled eggs for breakfast - really liked it too - and then we played in the yard until lunch. We ran down to the store for fruit and baby food, and that was lunch. We’ve just been - uh, well, I think they missed you.”

Kate stared at him, inundated by information, the two boys in his arms both trying to get down and crawl on the bed. “Wow.”

“You hungry or...?”

“Um, I have to pee,” she muttered, shifting to put her feet over the side. Castle dropped the boys to the bed and took her hand, helping her rise. But she was fine; she didn’t need help.

She scratched James’s back as she passed, kissed Wyatt where she could reach, and headed towards the master bathroom. It was the same massive redwood door as all the others, but last night all she had done was stick her head in before she’d closed the door to keep the boys out.

This time, stepping over the threshold, she was momentarily overwhelmed. The far end of the bathroom was a clear window overlooking the creek, trees so close to the glass that the brothers must have replanted them after construction. The bathroom itself was all dove grey walls and slate, dark-stained redwood and chrome finishings. The floor was tiled in large blocks, and the white square sinks were floating midway up the slate wall. 

The bathtub was huge. It was sloped sides, free-standing before the window, and she found herself drawn to it, touching the curved white side. She looked around and saw a glass-walled shower just to the left, the showerhead set into the ceiling and various knobs all down the wall. To the right was a toilet set into a kind of wide closet, but there was no door.

“Castle!” she called over her shoulder.

He came into the bathroom with a raised eyebrow, silent, arms empty.

“This is... amazing.”

He grinned. “Yeah. It is. You should see Colin’s. He went a little crazy. Hey, I was thinking I’d put a bathroom in upstairs too, so the boys aren’t sharing ours, so be thinking about what you think we’d need in there. Probably not a tub like this. It was kind of hellacious bathing them this morning.”

Her jaw dropped.

“Oh, sorry, here. I’ll let you go to the bathroom in peace. Boys have probably crawled off the bed too. You can shower too - if you want.”

And then he left her there, standing unkempt and muzzy in the middle of his luxury bathroom.

\-----

She had just stripped her clothes when she realized she didn’t know how to turn on the shower. A hundred nozzles that turned and twisted, but none of them actually made the water come on.

Kate had found towels in the open shelves of the linen closet near the toilet, but she just padded quickly past the mirror and to the door, peeking out.

Castle was messing with the boys on the bed, dropping clothes on top of their heads, some kind of game. She saw the closet door standing open and the inside a mess.

“Shit,” Castle yelped. “I didn’t see you there... wow.”

She was naked, right. “Um. Can you turn on the shower? I can’t figure it out.”

He flushed pink and abandoned the boys on the bed, came straight to her and caught her by her hips. She was bumped backwards by the force of his rush, and she gripped his forearms until the cold sink hit the small of her back.

When she gasped and arched into him, Castle had her up on the sink. Kate squirmed against the cold marble, her flesh crawling with the chill, the distance between them.

And then Castle leaned forward and kissed her, drawing her body into his. She parted her knees to his hips and hooked her arms around his shoulders, sliding closer. He wasn’t out of control, wasn’t grinding into her, but the sensations he spilled through her made her wish he would.

His mouth devoured hers, trailed down her throat and dusted across her breasts. He kneaded her hips in wide hands and brought them up to catch her jaw, putting her away.

“Good morning,” he husked.

She grinned. “I like that kind of wake up call.”

“I’ll show you how to cut on the shower,” he said, cupping the side of her face in his hand. He touched a kiss to her nose. “Come ‘ere.”

She squeezed her knees around his hips when he tried to step back, and he grinned down at her. He slid his arm behind her shoulders and picked her up off the counter, carried her over to the shower with an ease that made her heart thump.

“You’re a troublemaker, aren’t you?” His kiss against her neck made her squirm, and she felt the material of his jeans against her inside thighs, abrading.

“Jeans,” she murmured. “Mm, like em.”

“We’ll get you some today, after you shower and get some food in you. How’s that?” Castle set her on her feet, unwinding her thighs from him to do it, but she went ahead and let him put her off.

“Sure,” she shrugged. “Jeans.” Her skin rippled as he moved past her for the shower. She turned her head and watched him press a button set into the slate outside the glass door, and she scowled as the water came on. “That’s how you do it.”

He chuckled and gave her a smirk over his shoulder, and then touched the main lever. “Hot and cold here. And then pressure here. This changes the settings - rainfall, which is overhead, and then the side nozzles - see?”

The water now jetted out from the sides of the shower and his arm was dripping wet, and she pushed past him and stepped inside. The heat was forceful, a kind of solid wall around her, and she grabbed Castle’s hand before he could withdraw it.

He was standing outside the shower door, just a lip of tile between them, and she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “Thank you.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Anything.” And then he brought her halfway his direction so that she was dripping water to the beautiful tile, and he kissed her softly. “Anything.”

She watched him leave, those beautiful lines of his body in dark jeans and a shower-spotted t-shirt, and then she stepped back into the spray.

\-----

She was standing in the middle of the shower, fists against the tile, but it was no use. 

She ached everywhere, deep twinges in her belly that corresponded to the over-full feeling in her breasts. She’d slept too long, and her head hurt, and now she’d missed the chance to nurse those boys this morning and it was too late, and too early for dinner, and Castle wanted to go shopping for jeans.

She closed her eyes and growled into the spray, lifting her chin to feel it spill down her neck. Between her breasts. Over her belly and slicking along her thighs.

There was no fucking pump here. No women in green scrubs and face masks attaching the suction cups and ignoring her every question, but why am I not nursing them, why can’t they just come back, are you weaning them? No pump, and she damn well wasn’t going back to one, not when those boys were right outside, wanting her and her wanting them.

No more of this. She’d washed her hair with his shampoo and found a razor on a little shelf, shaved her legs finally, thank God, felt so much better. She’d done that for herself, taken it on and managed it just fine. She wasn’t a prisoner any longer, and it was time to stop thinking like one.

Asking him for permission. No more. She was going to take what she needed.

Kate left the shower running and stepped out onto the rubber floor mat, dripping water to the tile. She squeezed her hair out over her shoulder and unfolded the white towel, pressed it against her body with a wince.

Her nipples were sensitive. She’d never gone this long. And he had said that she needed to nurse to keep the balance of nutrients in her body, so he couldn’t protest.

When she crossed the tile floor, dripping water all the way, she was already shivering, goose bumps brought up on her arms and legs. She opened the bathroom door wide.

Castle and the boys were still there; he must be waiting on her. His head came up and he glanced at her, a smile as he saw her there.

“You done? I-”

“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “No, I’m not done. Put the boys someplace they can’t get out of and come with me.”

Castle blinked and stood up straight. “What?”

“You heard me. Don’t dawdle.”

She turned around and dropped the towel in an alluring puddle on the floor, stalked back to the shower with a confidence she was manufacturing with every step. She opened the glass shower door and stood under the spray, her heart hammering. At least the sensors weren’t on, still on the pile of her clothes, not ratting her out.

It felt like she waited forever. And then there he was, an approach so silent she hadn’t heard him over the pounding beat of water.

She felt the water sluice over her face and between her breasts, aching, tight nipples, and she flicked her fingers at him. Castle was already shucking his shirt over his head, tossing it aside carelessly as his eyes raked over her. Her body responded just to the heat of his gaze, and she was possessed by it, this need that flared to life in her guts.

Castle dropped his jeans, stepped out of them, and took his boxers off with them. He opened the shower door and came inside, crowding her back into the stall. But she put her hands up and blocked him, shoving back against his chest, keeping him away from her.

“Kate.” His eyes raced over her face and dipped to her breasts.

She trailed her fingers down his chest to his hips. “I need you,” she said quietly. “Need your mouth on me. Just to tide me over until-”

Castle came at her, her gasp swallowed by his kiss, and she opened with a moan, forgetting somehow just how hot and forceful and demanding his mouth could be. He gripped her by the shoulders and hauled her closer, eliminating the space between them, and her breasts were crushed against his chest.

She mewled, shivering with the sensation of his wet, hard skin against hers. The grip of his muscles as he worked her, kneading her ass with one hand and pressing their groins together. She was frantic already, on the last edges of her control when she gripped his head in her hands and yanked him back.

Their lips smacked as the kiss broke. His eyes were closed but they fluttered open, fierce blue that pierced straight to her heart. “Kate.”

“Much as I love the way you kiss me,” she murmured, stroking her thumbs against his cheeks. “I have to nurse, just a little. I’m - too full and it hurts.”

His eyes hardened to the same slate as the beautiful bathroom, dark and stony with desire. “I can do that,” he husked, his hand shifting from her ass to her hip, skimming upwards.

“Good,” she said, feeling her skin catch fire where he touched her. “I thought you looked hungry.”

She got a crooked grin for that, a connection of their eyes, and then Castle was pushing her back against the tile wall, his head falling to her breasts. She gasped and arched into him, but the tile was heated, blissfully heated, and he’d flipped the lever so that the water came out of the showerhead like rain.

Kate tilted her head back and watched it fall, moaned when his cheek brushed against the slope of her breast. Castle caught an arm behind her legs and suddenly she was being lifted up and settled on the bench seat, warm redwood under her ass and the place filling up with steam.

He’d turned it into a sauna. She wasn’t cold at all, not even out of the shower spray, not even as his tongue traced a wet trail over her breast and circled her nipple. Kate cried out, legs widening to accommodate his hips as he knelt before her, tightening her arms around his neck.

Castle opened his mouth at the underside of her breast and nipped the skin, a jolt of arousal through her. She gripped his shoulder and arched her back, pushing her breasts closer, and his mouth landed hotly over her nipple.

“Oh, God,” she cried out, shuddering as he licked. His lips dusted across her areola and made her raw, everything feeling, nerves exposed to him. He curled his tongue around her nipple and she keened, the absolute stunning relief of milk spilling out of her.

Her hips rocked with the searing sensation of his mouth tugging her nipple, the suckling of teeth and tongue and pressure. Everything was coming through her in waves, feeling and relief and the building pleasure, everything rolling over her. She opened her eyes and saw the rain falling over his back and she dragged her fingers up through the rivulets, the drops and streams of water.

He sucked at her breast and kneaded the heavy flesh, both hands working so that her body responded in wonderful rolls of heat. She tightened her thighs at his hips, the slick chafe of wet skin making her feel amazing, just this, how close his cock was to her sex, how much his mouth pulled that terrifyingly wonderful release from her body.

He pulled insistently at her nipple, his mouth open wide over her breast and tugging, working, massaging the milk out of her. She was trembling now, verging on the edge of something, and she clutched the back of his neck and cried out.

Castle pulled back, eyes staring dark at her, lashes licked with water. His mouth came to hers in a crushing kiss and she could taste it from his tongue, the taste of her breastmilk, and she moaned and sucked everything of his into her that she could.

She stroked her hand around his ribs and fumbled the backs of her fingers at his abdominals until she found the nest of his pubic hair. She thumbed the swell of his shaft and underneath where his cock joined to his balls, stroking around and around until Castle growled into her mouth.

“Fuck,” he harshed, jerking away from her kiss. That darkness in him felt like violence, looked like undeniable need, and she cupped his balls in her hand to see what it did to him.

His eyes slammed shut and his head bowed forward. “Kate.”

“Don’t stop,” she husked. She released his balls and leaned back against the tile again, offering her breasts to him, beckoning with her hand. “Come closer so I can-”

Castle was already laying her down, pressing in on top of her, their bodies on the cramped bench. She moaned as his mouth came over her neglected breast, the rough scratch of his jawline against her skin. She couldn’t reach his cock at all this way, and her hand fell limply to his back, the other hand at his nape, squeezing.

He opened his mouth over her and tongued her nipple. She moaned and arched hard upward, forcing him down with her hand. Castle latched on and sucked, pulling milk out of her breast in that urgent terrible relief. She trembled under him, one knee up and bracketing his hip, the other foot on the tile floor, her pelvis heavy with the weight of him on top of her.

His body bucked against her and she trailed her fingernails up his back, palmed his skull, fingers threading through his wet hair. The way he felt rooting against her, the grunt of his desire, his teeth making her cry out - she was pushed up out of need to an entirely new place, coasting the undulations of her own body, tumbling to the troughs of pleasure.

It wasn’t an orgasm; she thought she knew that much, she did know that much; this wasn’t an orgasm.

It was a hundred times better. She went up and up and up, crushed against the ceiling of her need, trembling on that plateau until she couldn’t even tremble any more.

His mouth came off her breast and his kiss painted her throat, suckling at the water sprayed across her skin. He hovered above her, fingers combing her wet hair back from her face, tendrils out of her eyelashes.

“Baby, you okay?”

“So okay,” she hummed, blinking through rain as she looked up at him. 

“Just don’t come,” he husked. “I forget - somehow I forget, you just taste so good, you move under me and I - I lose it.”

She smiled up at him, drug-dopey and buzzing with pleasure. “You haven’t yet, but let me fix that.”

“Wha-” Castle choked when she gripped his cock. She’d felt it pulsing at her belly when she’d opened her eyes, and now she worked him fast, knowing the friction of water chafing his skin would make him burn.

He groaned and dropped his forehead against hers.

“Yeah, love,” she murmured into his open mouth. She touched her tongue to his lip and he whimpered. “That’s it, baby. You feel so good, your mouth on me, feels so good, such a relief. Don’t you want that same feeling?”

“God, please. Please,” he moaned.

She fisted him, unable to reach his balls in this position - later, she’d go back to that later - taking note of every groan and panting breath out of his mouth. When her pinky accidentally caught the head of his cock on her last pass, he jerked and thrust into her grip. She did it again, on purpose, found a way to twist at the end, and Castle cursed and erupted in her hand, his orgasm bursting out of him, come slicking her hip and belly as his body ground into her.

She tightened her arm around his neck and held him close, burying her mouth against his to taste him as he gave over his release.

He was moaning her name when his body finally collapsed on top of hers. Her breasts were crushed and it felt so damn good.

It all felt so good.

\-----

If he looked a little smirking and self-important after that shower, what the hell did she care?

She felt pretty good too, and Castle was attractive in his puffed-up pride, and it barely mattered at all that she was wearing a too-big t-shirt and a pair of black leggings that looked practically grey now. 

Who needed make-up when Castle looked at her like he’d tasted something he liked and wanted more?

Colin slammed the door shut and Kate jumped, glancing back to him on the bridge. He was holding Wyatt, the boy patting his chest as if in sympathy, but Colin only fumed silently.

“What’s wrong?” she said, pausing by the gate. 

Colin rolled his eyes. “Him. He’s insufferable. You - you’re harder to read, and I appreciate your restraint. But this guy? You gotta stop fucking him. He feels like the fucking king of the world.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. No, it wasn’t great that Colin could feel the aftereffects of their - uh - no, that wasn’t wonderful. But it was funny. It was.

She made Castle feel like the king of the world.

And they weren’t really fucking. They were just - doing a lot of other stuff, working their way around it, heavy petting until they were blissed out.

“Yeah,” Colin muttered. “Laugh it up. You’re not the one who has to suffer through him.”

“Oh,” she laughed harder. “But I am.”

Colin grunted, and she caught the way his lips curled at the corner, how he didn’t want to laugh but he was. She hooked her arm through his, caught Wyatt’s hand to kiss his palm as they walked.

“Uncle Colin’s grumpy, isn’t he? We need to find Uncle Colin a girlfriend. What do you think, Wyatt?”

“Who needs a girlfriend?” Castle called. He reached past her to take Wyatt from Colin’s hands, jostling her a little as he did so that she had to let go of Colin’s arm.

“Your brother,” she answered. “He’s jealous that you’re getting laid.” She turned back to Colin and grinned. “You do know he’s not really, right? Barely getting-”

“Too much information!” Colin slapped his hands over his ears and closed his eyes, and it made Wyatt laugh at him. “The copper is there for a reason.” Colin pushed past them and headed for the SUV, jumping inside and slamming the door shut.

Kate laughed and met Castle’s eyes, sharing the joke with him, but he was frowning at her. “What?” she said. “You’re not. I mean, getting laid is fucking, isn’t it? So you’re getting - fisted.”

“Shit, Beckett,” he growled, turning around to put Wyatt in his seat. She loved how the tips of his ears were red, and his hands fumbled at the straps just like he fumbled with her.

She got to him. He was king of the world, so what did that make her?

Kate laid her hand on his back and rucked up his shirt, teased the skin of his back. He whirled around with his hands in fists, his eyes glittering and dangerous.

“Don’t fucking do that,” he hissed.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t very well carry your son with a hard-on.”

“Oh, no?”

He clapped his hands around her face and took a harsh kiss from her mouth, brutal and rough, her lips bruising. Blood on her tongue. When he pulled back, he was breathing hard, and his eyes avoided hers, and he lifted the back of his hand to his mouth and growled.

He was shaking.

She liked it, but she knew she wasn’t supposed to. “I’m not sorry,” she husked. “I’m not sorry.”

“You push and you fucking push-” He shook his head and turned and slammed the door shut on Wyatt. They were left standing on the gravel drive, both boys inside with Colin. “Have mercy, Kate.” He reached out, releasing his fists to cradle her jaw. “I want you so badly. You want to hurt me, you want to hurt? You know I don’t mind the hurt; I like the hurt. But I won’t damage you. I won’t.”

She sobered, feeling chastised, remembering again that he thought he loved her. She wanted abuse to scald her, not love. She wanted to be beat and to hit back; she wanted to kick out before she got kicked. 

He had taught her that. Black. 

Black had taught her more than she wanted to think about.

Kate shuddered in a breath and stepped out of Castle’s grip, nodding. “Right. No damage. I know. You’re right.” She pushed past him and opened Wyatt’s door again, crawling between the seats to get in the back. Castle was driving them; she could be alone.

But Castle came after her, crouching between the boys’ seats, his hands on her thighs. He buried his face in her lap and she felt him expel a hard breath. She could see him trembling.

Kate laid her hands on his shoulder blades. Her eyes lifted from the view of him prostrate before her, and she found Colin’s gaze on her, dark and judging.

Colin didn’t like her.

She sucked in a stunned breath and her hands gripped Castle; he rose up from his crouch and caught her face with his palms.

He kissed her. Softly. Sipping at her lips. “We’re gonna be okay. You are gonna be okay.”

She nodded, hanging on to his forearms as he was bent in half to get at her. “I am. I’m okay. Go, Castle. Just go.”

He kissed her one last time and then crawled out of the back seat, checking both boys’ restraints as he did.

Kate sank back against the seat and closed her eyes.

She was not okay.

\-----

Colin gripped the seatbelt with one white-knuckled hand and the handlebar on the frame above the window with the other. He was gritting his teeth too.

Castle himself was pretty stable. He checked again, but no, he had evened out. He was very adept at evening out, sloughing off the bad and stabilizing himself, but Colin was sitting there like he had a fucking riot in his head.

Oh, fuck.

Kate.

It was Kate.

Castle sighed and checked the rearview mirror, but she was out of his sight. The boys were eager enough, James had his rag doll (he hadn't let go of it all day, and now he clutched it right up against his face and sucked on his thumb) and Wyatt had dropped the rabbit in favor of the container of cereal Castle had given him to keep him quiet.

Was James being more quiet than usual? More withdrawn? Did he feel like he needed comforting because really someone else did?

"Is it Kate?" he said quietly, not even glancing at his brother. "It's Kate. What do I-"

"No, leave it alone. Fuck."

"But it's my-"

"It's not your fault, asshole. It's just fucking life. Leave her alone. She's almost got a handle on it."

A handle on it. On what? He had somehow hurt her feelings or he - he was just too rough. Had he scared her? She hadn't looked scared. Maybe Colin was right. He had said that his perception only brought more trouble, that people weren't meant to know how other people felt, that it stripped away that thin veneer of civilization and made the whole world into crude animals.

Maybe he ought to let Kate handle Kate. 

His palms were clammy on the steering wheel when Colin reached out and smacked him in the chest. "Would you stop it? This is why people don't fucking weep all over each other. We can't handle it. She's dealing back there and so you need to let it go."

"Yeah," Castle said, nodding roughly. He swallowed back the urge to ask ridiculous questions of Colin, like they'd done in boarding school when one of the co-ed girls showed interest. Does she like me, do I have a shot with her, what's my best play here? 

"Steady on, Castle."

Steady. Yes. He could do that. His heart wasn't ripping to shreds at the thought of Kate alone in the back trying to deal. It wasn't. He was fine.

He needed to pay attention to the road; he had precious cargo in the back. And the boys, yes. Focus on the drive.

He was going to buy her one of those big, warm cookies at the outdoor food court and he was going to hold her hand as they shopped and he was going to ogle her in silk panties and lace. And swimsuits. She needed a swimsuit for the creek. She needed a pair of jeans that would hug her ass and make her feel like a person again. Soft shirts that he could press his face against and inhale the scent of her skin through the material.

"Okay," Colin croaked. "Shit. Okay. That's - better. But, hell."

"What?" he said.

"Just as intense."

Castle let out a breath. "This is the best I can do right now."

"No, no. It's fine. Really. Just kind of shoves me right out of my own... damn."

"The ocean," he reminded, getting back on solid ground with his brother once more. "Describe it."

"Riding a wave. Not quite in control, but a fucking awesome view from here."

"Yeah?" Castle asked, feeling better for it. At least the way he loved Kate didn't hurt his brother. Love had never come up before. Love had never been a part of anything they had. He loved his brother, but it was not at all the same as this. Love for his brother was a firm and established routine.

Love for Kate was being consumed.

He just hoped it went both ways. Eventually. He hoped she would love him back.

Honestly, he didn't know if she could, but he was fighting for it. Though making her lip bleed with the ferocity of his kiss probably wasn't a step in the right direction. Making her curl up in the backseat and deal probably wasn't either.

But he could do this. He could. 

This was his whole life.

He was steady now.

\-----

Kate stepped down onto hot pavement and shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun. Five o’clock in the afternoon and the summer day was heavy; she was glad Castle had convinced her to leave the sweatshirt at home.

Home. A castle in the woods.

This was not at all the same, and yet it had all the trappings of what ought to be familiar.

The outlet mall was a collection of buildings ranging over an empty tract of flat land, brand names and department stores in broad signs over their angled canopies. The sidewalks were covered, and there was a well-kept park in the middle with a fountain, swings at the back for kids, maybe the hint of a metal jungle gym or slide, a kind of miniature train track. Normal. All so very normal. Unlike a castle in the woods.

And yet.

Kate scraped her hair back and pulled a strand out of her mouth, faced the wind to keep more from blowing up. Castle had already unstrapped James from his seat and was carrying him, while Colin waited by the passenger door.

Waiting on her to move, most likely.

Kate stepped out of his way, dragging the bag from the floorboard and hiking it over her shoulder. It wasn’t anywhere near five pounds, but Castle gave her a look and reached for it.

“No. It’s fine,” she said, knocking his hand away. “Let me do something.”

He desisted, putting his arm under James’s bottom to lift him higher, and the boy waved at her, those open-and-close fingers. She leaned in and kissed his palm, snapped his fingers into her mouth so that he ducked his head against Castle.

She straightened his shirt and when she turned around, Colin had Wyatt in one arm, bracing him as he shut the back door. 

Kate took a breath and let it out. She could do this. She needed clothes, the boys still had a whole list that she and Castle had come up with while she’d eaten breakfast/lunch/whatever it was at three in the afternoon.

At least she had the bag to carry. Diapers and wipes stuffed into it, so it was light; she could definitely do this.

“Here, put this in the bag,” Castle said, detaching that rag doll from James. 

The boy whined and leaned out after it, and Kate hesitated. Castle unzipped the bag anyway, took it from her fingers, doing it one-handed.

“But, he-”

“I’m afraid he’ll drop it, Kate. And then we’ll never find it.”

She flushed; she hadn’t thought of that. “It’s just - I made it from my other sweatshirt. Holes in it. Nothing spe-”

“I think you underestimate its value,” he murmured, adjusting the strap on her shoulder with James whining pitifully against his neck. “You made it for him. It’s his - connection to you and he feels it. We absolutely can’t lose that.”

She swallowed roughly and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” She glanced over her shoulder to Wyatt, babbling at Colin in the man’s arms. His language had blossomed these last few days, mimicking all of their sounds and attempting some of his own. He had left his own rag doll back in his bed, and he carried around that bunny everywhere now. But the bunny was inside the car, safe.

“Where we headed first?” Colin said, tilting his head away as Wyatt tried to touch his face. He brought Wyatt’s hand down and held it there against his chest. “We could split up-”

“No,” Kate said, a thread of anxiety stitching up her guts. “Not split up. I...”

“No, we won’t split up. Only one bag for the boys - it’ll be too hard to take care of one on our own.”

Kate let out a breath, grateful to Castle for bulldozing right over her panic. He took her hand and squeezed before lacing their fingers together.

“Let’s head for the center, where the food court is, and get something to keep the boys busy for a little while.” Castle pointed with their clasped hands towards the park she’d noticed. He was already tugging her forward while James wilted on his shoulder.

She followed a half step behind him, made faces at James behind Castle’s back. The boy still mourned his rag doll, but after a few silly looks from her, sticking her tongue out, he grinned back and perked up.

Castle’s fingers squeezed between hers. She glanced behind her and saw Colin coming up with Wyatt. The boy was attentive, people-watching as they neared the outlet mall and left the wide-open parking spaces. Kate stepped faster, catching up to Castle again, their hands brushing her thigh.

The park held a confluence of food concessions and shops, and this was where the majority of people had congregated. She saw a Sunglass Hut that was an actual free-standing tiki hut, and at the other end of the row was a pretzel place that smelled richly of butter and salt. It made her stomach churn.

And of course, Castle tugged her straight towards it.

“No,” she said, resisting. “No, I-”

He glanced back at her face, hesitating. “I thought soft pretzels would keep them occupied.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek and glanced around, the families out shopping or strolling, the bags of clothes already bought, the wind that flipped long hair into eyes. A girl of about twelve scraped her hair out of her mouth and sank her teeth into a soft pretzel and Kate sighed.

“Okay, um... can I sit with the boys on that bench and wait for you?” She pointed towards a red wooden bench that was well away from the pretzel stand. “I won’t try to lift them or anything. We’ll just sit and wait.”

Castle glanced at Colin who shrugged. “I’m a pack mule, this trip, big brother. Tell me what you want to do.”

“Okay,” Castle said, nodding. “We’ll get you settled on the bench over there. We can sit and eat, make sure the boys can carry their pretzels while we shop.”

She nodded and turned to lead the way, flinching badly when she nearly ran into someone. Castle caught her with a hand on her shoulder and guided her forward, and she found her heart was pounding. 

When they had made it to the bench, she sank down gratefully and pushed her hands between her knees to hide their shaking. Colin sat down on the other end of the bench and put Wyatt between them, holding the kid in place with a hand.

Castle glanced at her, and she knew he was rethinking everything, that just looking at her near-freak-out had made him question their trip.

Well, too bad. This was life. She lifted her arms for James. “Give him here. Go get them disgusting pretzels and we’ll see if they like it.”

Castle gently lowered James to her lap, touched the side of her face with his fingers as if he needed to look in her eyes to be sure. She wrapped her arms around James and felt better already, being able to do something rather than just stuttering around. James leaned his head back against her chest and gave Castle a wave.

Castle smiled. “Bye, James. Be right back, kiddo.”

When Castle walked off, Wyatt squawked and moved to get down. Colin tried to hold him back, but Wyatt was insistent, loudly grumbling, not happy with the man keeping him on the bench. After a moment of watching him struggle against Colin, Kate laid her hand on the boy’s knee, squeezing. 

Wyatt instantly went still.

“Neat trick,” Colin said.

She let out a breath, glanced at Wyatt’s face. He was absolutely frozen. 

Petrified.

“It’s an awful trick,” she rasped. She leaned in until her shoulder touched the top of Wyatt’s head, and she lifted her free hand from his knee to cup the side of his face. “I’m sorry, but you have to be good and sit here with me. Just for a little while. Castle is coming - coming back.”

Wyatt turned and buried his face against her arm. 

“Shit,” Colin whispered.

In her lap, James squirmed until he could put his head on her chest, his feet dangling off her lap and touching Wyatt’s legs. Both boys stayed very still, right where they were, unmoving.

“Shit. Shit,” Colin groaned. “This is - fuck. Don’t let Castle see.”

“Don’t let him see what,” she said, trying not to let the bleakness envelop her.

“Don’t let him see that trick. That it’s possible to - fuck. What they went through. What you went through. Fuck.”

She sighed, lowered her lips to the top of James’s head, cradling him in one arm. “They’re just tired. I think. It doesn’t work all the time. I think just because you’re here, a new person. I don’t know. It’s awful; I know it is.”

Colin was staring at Wyatt, just staring at him. Studying him maybe. After a minute of silence between them, Colin turned and gathered Wyatt into his arms, pressed the boy down to his chest.

The place against her side where Wyatt had been was damp with his sweat. She watched as Colin whispered in Wyatt’s ear, things she couldn’t hear, but it seemed to marginally work, relaxing him inch by inch.

And that was when Castle came back, laden down with a whole tray of food. Pretzels in thin white sleeves and two kids’ cups of water, but also she smelled chocolate chip cookies and there were cups for the three of them, and another bag of something else, something sweet and chocolatey.

She stared up at Castle and he grinned, sank down to her other side, wedged in close. “I kinda... went overboard. But these cookies. Look at ‘em.” He settled the tray on his lap and lifted a paper bag to her face. “Smell that. How can you not?”

She took a tentative whiff and her mouth began to water. 

Chocolate.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding her head and swallowing hard. “Cookies smell really good.”

“I know, right? Here. Take one and pass the bag. Colin won’t forgive me if he doesn’t get his.”

Colin snorted and rolled his eyes, and Kate realized Castle was trying to pull one past her. This was a set-up, all of it, that they’d planned between them. 

She didn’t mind. She wanted to eat that huge damn cookie.

“Give it here,” she said. “And then take Wyatt from your brother. He was sad you didn’t say good-bye to him too.”

\-----


	19. Chapter 19

Castle sat with Wyatt in his lap, holding a hand under the boy’s mouth as he chewed his pretzel. He had a better handle on it than James, whom Colin had gotten stuck with, and so far Castle didn’t have to catch anything but crumbs. Col kept shooting him these fast, troubled looks, but Castle didn’t know why - he felt okay. He seemed steady.

Kate sat between them eating her cookie, bigger than her whole hand, slowly and with relish. She looked like a kid; she looked hot, licking smears of chocolate from her thumb and taking small, nibbling bites. She seemed steady too, so he didn’t know what Colin’s looks were for.

Wyatt had been sad at first, huddling against him, but he was fine now. Castle hadn’t thought about what it might look like to the kid, walking away from him, and he’d have to be more careful next time. Pay attention. He curled his arm around Wyatt’s belly and slid his free arm behind Kate’s shoulders on the bench.

She gave him a look and grinned, and he leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Good?”

“Mm-hm,” she hummed, squinting into the sun as she looked at him. “Good.”

He laughed, feeling good again, and glanced past her to Colin. His brother was dusting pretzel off the front of his shirt and pants, looking a little disgusted. Castle flicked his fingers into Colin’s shoulder, leaning into Kate to do it, and Col glanced at him.

“Yeah, I gotta... here.” Colin lifted James from his lap and stood up, moved around Kate’s knees to deposit James in Castle’s lap as well. “You do this, Dad. I’m gonna be right back.”

Castle chuckled, withdrawing his arm from Kate to balance a boy on each leg. “All right. Hey, hand me my water before you go.”

Colin rolled his eyes but he plucked up the styrofoam cup and put it in Castle’s hand before walking off. Kate nudged his shoulder and jutted out her chin towards him, mouth opening.

“Hit me up,” she said when he hesitated, uncertain.

Castle laughed and tilted the drink towards her and she stuck her tongue out to touch the straw, came in and sucked water from his own cup. He watched her hair fall forward into her face and her hand come up and tuck it behind her ear, and then she released his straw and sat back.

“Good?”

“Yup.” She still had half the cookie left, but she was squinting into the glare and resting, it seemed. Her head ducked in against his shoulder. “It’s bright.” 

He realized she was using him to block the sun and he shifted to give her a little more shadow, adjusting the boys in his arms. Kate relaxed and lifted a hand to catch pretzel crumbs from James’s messy eating.

“Can I confess something?” she said.

Castle startled. “Yeah. What?”

“I don’t know where to start,” she sighed. She brushed pretzel crumbs off into the grass and took his cup of water from him, sipped from his straw. 

“Start with-?”

She gestured off towards the shopping center. “All that.”

“You are not wearing that sweatshirt one more single day, Beckett.”

She barked a laugh that was mostly surprise, and at least he could do that. She shifted to sit up and look at him and just then Colin came back to them.

“Col?”

“Here,” he said, thrusting a bag out to Kate. She took it reflexively, and Colin sat down on the other side. Castle leaned forward to look at him, the boys gripped in each arm, but Colin just shook his head.

“What is this?” Kate said. But it was evident from the bag - Sunglass Hut - exactly what it was.

“Good idea,” Castle said, nodding at his brother. Damn good idea. She’d been squinting all afternoon and all he’d done was move his body to block the sun.

Colin had bought her a pair of fucking sunglasses.

“Oh my God,” she murmured, pulling a bright orange hardshell case from the bag. She flipped it open and dark-framed Ray-bans were nestled inside. Kate wasted no time in opening them and sliding them onto her face, dwarfing her features in sexy-cool model sunglasses.

“Damn, those are hot,” Colin said. “I did good.”

Kate laughed and it was like she was a different person, her lank hair and pale skin remade into something mysterious and special. She was a star in their midst. She looked at Castle and shrugged. “What do you think?”

“Looking good, Becks.”

She grinned and pushed them back on her nose. “I like these. Colin. Thank you. Didn’t have to-”

“Yeah, I did. Shut up.”

Kate bit her bottom lip, still grinning, and hooked her arm through Colin’s, half-hugging him. Castle grunted but he couldn’t say anything. “You one-upped me, you sneaky bastard.”

“I did. Brought the game up to a whole new level.”

“What?” Kate said. “No, I-”

“No, that’s fine, that’s fine. We’ll see what we can do next. You got shades that are seriously rockin’ it, now what, Beckett?”

Kate glanced slowly around the mall, looking for the world like she was peering out at chaos from the safety of her little red bench. “Um. I...”

“I know,” Castle said quickly. Silk. Lace. Even cotton, so long as she wanted them. “I got just the thing. Col, can you take the kids to the playground? They have those toddler swings.”

“Wait. What are we doing, Castle?”

“Panties,” he said with relish. “We are doing panties. And bras too. I’m assuming you want bras.”

“Oh my God,” she groaned.

“And... that’s my cue,” Colin muttered. “Come on boys. We’re going to the playground.”

\-----

Kate’s fingers were laced through his as they walked down the sidewalk away from the playground. She had seen the boys into their toddler swings, the thrill of joy on their faces as Colin had pushed them (only a little), and now she was walking away from them.

She had her sunglasses on and she’d pulled her hair up into a high, messy bun with a white stretchy thing she’d found in the bag. The neon orange glasses case Castle had pushed into the bag, left the bag with Colin, and now they were unencumbered as they walked.

Castle was practically bouncing on his toes as he led her down the sidewalk. She could see the signs down this direction, one name after another, brands she’d never heard of: Celine, Balenciaga, Elie Tahari, Vilebrequin, Marni, Theory...

Castle tugged on her hand and pulled her into a lush-velvet store called Aricie. Kate paused inside, staring at the curves and colors, the sexuality oozing from the walls in the form of black and white posters, women clad in only underwear.

“Um.” She nudged her sunglasses on top of her head. No, it really was dripping with sex in here.

“Come here. This stuff is crazy. Sexy as hell, but - well. Hey, you see that woman heading our way?”

Kate flicked her eyes towards the back, saw the girl - girl, she was Kate’s age - striding towards them. She was wearing a black dress shirt, thin enough to see the chocolate of her skin beneath, and svelte red pants.

Kate was impressed. This girl was her age. Hair pulled back in a tight knot. Faint blush on her cheeks so that her eyes were luminous. Kate was definitely impressed. “Yeah, I see her.”

“Ask her for help. If I do it - it’ll look weird.”

Kate’s lips twitched as she gave him a sidelong look. “You mean you picking out my underwear and dictating my wardrobe is weird?”

He scowled at her and she grinned. She lifted on her toes and softly kissed Castle’s cheek, hanging on to his arm for balance. 

“You sit down back there,” she murmured. “I see a velvet couch near the dressing rooms. I might even let you peek.”

He grinned wolfishly and his eyes flared with lust. “Black lace, baby. I wanna see black lace.”

“Maybe,” she grinned. “If you’re good.”

“I can be good,” he promised, stepping back as the other woman approached. Before he left, she felt his fingers sliding into her sweatshirt pocket, and she went after his hand, felt the hard edge of plastic.

He’d given her a credit card. She felt a strange flush in her chest and fingered the plastic, but the woman was already on her and Castle was settling himself into the velvet couch, giving every impression he was uncomfortable at being a man in a woman’s den.

Even though she knew that wasn’t true.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked, her lips gorgeous in that knowing smile. “Looking for something specific?”

Kate swallowed past the dryness in her throat and tried to imagine what she might say that didn’t sound like she’d been caged for three years. “I... um - I have twins, I mean - I’m still nursing and nothing - fits - could-”

“Oh, definitely. We have nursing bras here.”  
There were nursing bras? Oh. Well. “Are they - cute at all?” she said, wincing. Her fingers knotted together and she made an effort to smooth them out. She could see Castle through the window. “Nursing bras don’t sound... cute.”

The woman gave her that same wonderful smile. “We’ll take a look, see what you like - there’s really a wide selection. Do you know your size?”

Shit. “Not - no.” How was she supposed to explain that?

“Don’t worry, a lot of moms come in here with that same problem. If you’ll come with me, I’ll measure you in one of our fitting rooms. Okay?”

Kate found herself being taken towards the back, passing right by Castle on the velvet couch. She trailed the tops of her fingers over his crossed knee and he grabbed her wrist, tugging only a little before letting her go.

“Is that your husband? He’s waiting so patiently.”

Kate startled with a laugh. “Um. Patient? Not... so much.”

She gave Castle a wriggle of her fingers over her shoulder and then stepped to back to the fitting rooms. The woman opened the door and ushered her inside. “If you’ll remove your top, leave the bra on, and knock when you’re ready.”

Kate nodded, but she’d be ready pretty fast, she knew. Sure enough, she shucked the oversized shirt and that was it. She knocked on the door, and half-opened it, allowed the woman back inside.

She had a tape measure and a pleasant smile, asked Kate to lift her arms. She obeyed, used to this, followed instructions for breathing in and out, and then had the pronouncement.

“We can definitely find you a few good nursing bras. What are you looking for? Color, strap width, coverage?”

Kate lowered her arms and gestured to the sports bra. “Mostly this is all I’ve got right now. Sad, I know-”

“No, don’t even worry about it. I had a new mom in here yesterday, and all she had were these cotton stretch things - looked like training bras, they were worn so thin. I understand.”

Kate let out a breath, relaxing. “Yeah. Um... what do you think?”

“Well.” The woman blinked, clearly not expecting that. Her eyes glanced down at Kate, assessing professionally. “I’d say a demi. Black and tan to start. Thin straps. You just had twins, right? You probably want to feel like a woman again, not just a-” The woman made a gesture and nodded. “Right?”

Kate bit her bottom lip. “Yeah,” she said, letting out a breath that was a lot more shaky than she’d intended. This gorgeous woman would fix everything, right? Shit.

“Be right back with a few in your size. See what you like, go from there.”

“Thank you,” Kate said, sinking to the bench seat inside the dressing room. The woman left and Kate pressed her palms to her knees, glad to be in the close space of the room, glad she was hidden.

She finally looked at herself in the mirror, let her eyes wander over her form. The blades of her scapulae stuck out like wings; her ribs were visible. But her breasts were full; she had that in her favor. Castle seemed to be really enamored. Honestly, she wasn’t that bad. She was thinner than she liked, but a few more of those cookies would do it.

She had muscle definition in her calves and her thighs were toned. Strong. She’d done what she could while they had her on the IV, more when they’d left her alone in the room. Not so bad.

Not so bad. Kate straightened up, turned to look at herself from the side. She stood and smoothed her fingers along her stomach, no stretch marks, pale as marble. 

He liked to touch her, and she was beginning to see what exactly he liked so much.

\-----

The woman grinned when she brought in the next handful; her cheeks were flushed now not by blush but something else that sparkled in her eyes. “Okay, I know you said simple, but your husband is out there practically falling all over himself to peek at what I’m bringing back here for you, and I thought... well, what about this?”

The woman held up something that was merely lace. Elaborate black lace.

Kate bit her bottom lip and shared a look with the woman helping her. She didn’t even know the woman’s name, but they were co-conspirators in this. “Yeah. He would really love that.” Kate reached out and fingered the thin material, confused by the triangles of lace and the finely-stitched straps. “How exactly does this even work?”

The woman grinned and took the straps off the pillowed hanger. “See these triangle flaps? They unbutton here on this strap, very discrete, so you can nurse.”

“It’s a nursing bra,” Kate laughed, taking it from the woman. “This is amazing. This is perfect.” She thumbed the lace button and felt that rush of heat in her guts just imagining Castle’s fingers peeling back the lace. “Shit.”

The woman startled and Kate had to catch the bra, blushing herself for the language.

“Um, oops, sorry. It falls out of my mouth sometimes,” she muttered.

“No, it’s fine. You’re fine. Twins are a lot to handle all at once. You deserve something that makes you - well, curse. Right?”

Kate flushed and glanced at the two bras she’d already picked out, the black and tan demi that she already knew she was going to wear every day, and the full-cup two-tone lace purple that just... caught her. The purple had jolted her with a thrill when she’d put it on. She had a plain black satin bra on right now and she thought she ought to get this one too.

It was a lot of money.

“I’ll try this one,” she said. “And the nursing bras in nude-?”

“Yes, I found these,” the woman said easily, laying them out on the bench. “Here we go. Try these and then we’ll see how we can narrow it down.”

Kate nodded as the woman left the dressing room and she reached for the selection, even while she popped the front clasp of the black satin. Boring, she could hear Castle saying-

“Damn, you’re beautiful.”

Kate jerked, turning fast to see Castle standing hunched over the door of the dressing room. He slipped inside and crowded her, his bulk filling the small room where previously Kate and the sales woman had both stood without any problem.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

“You promised to let me peek if I was good. I’ve been so good,” he pouted, planting his hands on her hips. His thumbs stroked her bare skin above the leggings.

The black bra was gaping open, now that she’d popped the clasp, and his fingers skimmed up her ribs to ease the cups apart.

“I like the black against your skin,” he murmured.

She felt the lace of the erotic nursing bra in her fingers. “Just you wait,” she said, not sure why she was saying it. “Turn around.”

“What?”

She glared at him. “Do what I say or miss out.”

Castle promptly turned around. 

She could see his face in the mirror and she huffed. “Close your eyes.”

He grunted but he closed his eyes, even put his hands over his face to make sure. Kate shrugged out of the black satin (she’d have to keep it, just because she’d always remember the look on his face and feel his fingers against her breasts when she wore it). She unhooked the back of the lace bra and wrapped it around her torso, hooked it back together again. She twisted it around and put her arms through the thin lace straps, adjusting everything.

She had to button the triangle scrap of lace that the sales woman had demonstrated with, and then she glanced fast in the mirror just to be sure.

Wow.

“You can look,” she husked.

Castle turned fast, dropping his hands, and when he saw her, his jaw dropped too. “Damn. That is - holy fuck, Beckett.” His eyes flicked up to her face and then back down again, one of his hands coming to the lace strap. He skimmed under the strap and then down to the button.

“It’s a nursing bra,” she murmured, her face flaming. “It opens.”

Castle breathed out a curse. “Kate.” His fingers were already pushing the button through the lace loop and pulling down the triangle of thin, sheer fabric. “Damn. You’re beautiful.”

She shivered, caught his elbow with her hand.

He looked up at her again, slowly blinking, his eyes dark and fierce. “I think we should take it for a test drive.”

“Wh-what?” she said, laughing a little.

“Let’s see if it works,” he hummed and then his head ducked to her breast and his mouth-

Oh, fuck. She gripped his ears at the heat of his lips around her, his mouth around her in a dressing room. She found her heart pounding as he suckled at her nipple, and her eyelids dragged up-

only to catch sight of them in the mirror.

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. 

She whined and gripped his ear, her hips jumping at the tug of his mouth, and then just like that he had pulled away from her.

She was breathing too hard to hear what he was saying. His fingers caressed the slope of her breast and refastened the material, and she was gripping his arms just to stay standing.

Her nipple was wet. Her pulse was roaring in her ears.

“I really hope you’re getting this one,” he rasped.

She nodded blindly, breasts aching, her body buzzing. 

“Is that all, babe? I only see... seven.”

“No, just - just these three. And maybe - I would need one of those beige bras for light t-shirts, but-”

“Only four?” he said, nudging past her to look. “That can’t be enough.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, touched his back with the tips of her fingers. “I only need - they last. I could get away with just one. And these are serious money.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No way. Don’t hold back just because-”

“I’m not,” she said quickly. “I’m getting four. Four new bras when I’ve had - um - nothing...” Kate trailed off; she hadn’t meant to really say that.

“Then get at least eight,” he said, turning back to her with a stern look on his face. “One a day plus an extra. This black lace... that’s extra. For me.”

“For you,” she laughed, her heart thundering again.

“Because I really like it. And I’ve kind of ruined it now. My mouth on it.”

Kate wrinkled her nose and touched the black lace, cupping her breast to see if he’d drooled on her.

“You really can’t do that in public,” he muttered. “I gotta walk around wanting you where everyone can see it.”

She pressed her lips together, but it was sweet. He made it sound sweet, him wanting her. He could be crude, or he could often be quite charming, but then he came out with something artless like that, and it made her smile.

“Eight, Kate,” he said, grinning at her and giving her a fast kiss on the mouth. “It rhymes, so it’s fate.”

“Shit, you’re corny,” she muttered.

“Only when I’m horny,” he chuckled. And he looked so pleased with it that she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Shut up and get out of here before the sales woman comes back,” she said, shoving on him. He was so broad-shouldered, so wide under her hands that she found herself sliding her arms around him and embracing him.

He stiffened for a moment and then hugged her back, fiercely, her ribs practically squeezed by his grip. She buried her face in his neck, surrounded by him.

He just hugged her. He just kept hugging her until she could loosen her arms, until she was settled again.

“Eight,” he whispered in her hair. “Please.”

“Okay.”

He cupped the back of her neck and looked in her eyes and then he was slipping out of the dressing room just that fast.

\-----

Castle waited outside, leaning against the front pillar of the covered sidewalk where he knew she could still see him. He had found a couple of styles he really liked looking at on the hanger, but he wasn’t about to suggest stuff. Not yet, anyway. Just...

He let out a breath and squinted his eyes against the sun, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Just a shopping trip, but he couldn’t relax completely. Never would, probably. That was his life.

He hoped she was getting that black and pink one, with the flowers over the cups like some kind of erotic Hawaiian hula dancer. Damn.

He should buy some sunglasses for himself. He had a pair in the SUV, but they were cheap from a convenience store on the run. He could buy a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses and be just like Kate, matchy-matchy.

It kinda appealed to him. Wow. He was that-

“Hey.”

He whirled around and found her standing just outside the lingerie store, a bag dangling from her fingers, her face unsure. He reached out and took the bag from her, and then her hand as well, drawing her forward with him. “Hey,” he said with a smile. “Come with me. I wanna get a pair of sunglasses too. If you don’t mind a break.”

“Yeah,” she said. She sounded light-headed, or maybe just overwhelmed. She was glancing over her shoulder at the store she had just left as if she couldn’t believe what she’d done. Eight bras at nearly eighty a piece, yeah. She was in sticker shock.

Didn’t matter. He had money. Serious money from his father’s... shit. He probably shouldn’t tell her that the money she used to clothe herself just now was from John Black, technically.

Well. John Black had started the slush fund, but it had been his and Colin’s work and sweat and tears and fucking blood that had built it.

Kate squeezed his hand. “Um, can you see the playground from the Sunglass Hut place?”

“Yup. You can.” He grinned back at her and she flushed and ducked her head, her hair falling before her face. She was pretty - gold-flecked eyes and lips that spread into a smile that absolutely killed him. But she was also this... exotic thing in their midst. He couldn’t fathom her sometimes, and it seemed impossible that he not know everything.

“Think you know me pretty well, huh?” 

He chuckled, and they rounded the corner to head back towards the center of the outlet mall’s buildings. “Trying to anyway.”

“They’re okay,” she said. “I know they are. I - think I can feel it. I never had trouble before. Having them apart from me.”

“Never.”

She sighed and her cheek came to rest against his shoulder for a moment. “Right. Well. I guess I was shoving that feeling down pretty hard. Making myself not have trouble with it.”

He let out a slow breath to keep from reacting overmuch to her confession. He knew now that she’d clam right back up if she thought he pitied her. If she even thought it made him sad. Which it did.

It made him sad in a really desperate way. He could do nothing at all to change what his father had done, what Castle himself had allowed to happen by sticking his head in the sand. He couldn’t even fix it now. She was out of there, but she had a long road ahead of her.

A couple new bras that he wanted to take right back off again? No. That didn’t do a damn thing to help.

He hoped it just distracted her long enough to feel good about life again.

Kate tugged on his hand and he found that he’d fallen behind. He stepped across the brick-paved path and into the park in the center, heading for the Hut.

“You’re not getting shades to match mine,” she said then.

He laughed and squeezed her fingers, giving her a smirk. “Just might.”

“You little punk.”

“Wouldn’t we be so cute?”

“You’re not.”

“I really am.”

“I like mine,” she said, as if he’d insulted her. Castle laughed and leaned in to kiss her, fast so that she couldn’t take it away from him. She pushed her fingers into his cheek, shoving him away. “I like my sunglasses. For me.”

“You just like ‘em ‘cause Col picked them out.”

She flushed and hip-bumped him. But then she reeled him back in by the hand, her chin tucking on top of his shoulder as they approached the counter. “Aviators.”

“What?” he said, tilting his head back to her.

She dug her chin into him. “Aviators. You know with the-”

“Like in Top Gun?”

She caught her breath with a laugh. “Yeah. Not the Risky Business Tom Cruise, but the pilot.”

He didn’t know the risky thing, but he knew enough that she had some kind of mental image in her head. “Aviators, huh.”

“Like those,” she murmured, nodding her head towards the case. 

Castle turned back to the open kiosk and put a hand on the glass, leaning in to look. They were pretty cool, actually, and he liked the wire frames, the way the dark lenses faded at the bottom. He gestured to the sales guy and pointed. “Can I try those?”

The man unlocked the case and pulled out the aviator sunglasses, handed them over without so much as a word. But Castle didn’t care. He slid the sunglasses on and turned to Kate.

She was biting her bottom lip.

Oh, yeah. He was getting these.

\-----

They checked in with Colin on the playground and he’d apparently had his eye on the miniature train that circled the entirety of the outlet property because the moment they’d arrived, he’d started packing up.

“We can sit in the shade that way too,” Colin finished, glancing to Kate. “Just ride around and around until you guys are done.”

“You think you can keep them still?” Castle asked, touching the top of Wyatt’s head as he came to him. Castle bent over and picked up the boy, hugging him against his chest. “James is fairly active.”

“I know a trick,” Colin said with a flashing smile. But Kate stiffened and her face drained of color and Colin reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder. “Kidding. Bad joke. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?” Castle said, shifting closer to Kate.

“Beat them to make them sit still,” Colin said easily. “Here, give me Wyatt. James will walk with me. They’ll be fine. I have my phone, you have yours. We’ll just be riding around.”

Castle glanced at Kate, but she still seemed out of it - shut down. She had turned off. He squeezed Wyatt in his arms, kissed the boy’s cheek because it just felt necessary for some reason, and then he handed the boy over to Colin.

He squatted down in front of James and lightly cuffed the side of the boy’s ear, curled his arm around James’s neck and pulled him in. “Be good for Colin. I’ll take care of Mommy. Can you give her a hug before we go? Hug Mommy.”

James wriggled out from his arms and catapulted himself towards Kate, clinging to her knees. Kate blinked, and it was like she came back into herself; she crouched over James and kissed his cheeks, his forehead, a flurry of love that she was pouring out onto him.

Castle stood and looked at Colin; his brother nodded back at him and held out a hand for James. After a moment of cuddling against Kate, James took Colin’s hand and was led peacefully away. Kate straightened up and her arms dangled at her sides, looking washed out.

Castle tucked the bag under his arm and reached for Kate’s hand, feeling possessive in a way that probably wasn’t kind. She couldn’t leave him. He wasn’t going to let her leave him.

“Hey, you ready? I’m not sure how long the train ride can last.”

“Yeah,” she said, listless. No life in her voice.

“Come here,” he said, tugging her towards the sidewalks again. “One store, right? We’ll go in and grab everything.” He skimmed the stores quickly, picking one close to them, and steered her towards it. 

“I don’t-”

“Jeans, some tops. That’s all, Kate. While the train ride lasts, baby.” He saw display windows with jeans and slouchy tops, cute skirts that flared, accessories dripping off mannequins, and he reached out to open the door.

“I don’t think I can-”

“You can’t walk around in just bras and panties all day long. Well, no, wait. You could. I would be okay with that. I don’t know that I want Colin seeing-”

She slapped the back of her hand into his chest and slipped inside the overly-air conditioned store. White/Black or something like that. He couldn’t read all of the sign before he’d picked it, but it didn’t matter. He heard Kate take in a deep breath ahead of him, and her shoulders seemed to relax.

And then Kate turned around, still on the entry tile, and shook her head. “I don’t need this. I just - I don’t know where to start.”

“Start with jeans,” he said quietly. “You’ve got the undergarments. Now for jeans.” He squeezed her fingers. “You can do this.”

She let out a breath and tilted her face up to him, but her eyes were swimming. “I didn’t - get any underwear. I didn’t think of it. I was just trying to get out of there and I didn’t-”

He laughed, couldn’t help it, and her face fell. But he snaked an arm around her neck and kissed the top of her head, hugging her close. “It’s okay. Okay, love. We can get those later. If that’s the worst of it, honey, we’re doing good.”

She pushed him off of her and stepped away, and he could see her trying to keep it together. He took her hand again, the bag of bras tucked under his arm, and he tugged her towards the back wall where a row of jeans in various styles were displayed. She came with him, and he saw her gravitating towards the darker wash selection, so he pulled out four or five pairs in a range of sizes.

“Try them on, and see what fits. Then I’ll come back out and get you every single style in your size.”

Kate opened her mouth but snapped it closed in a moment, her cheeks flushing. And then Castle felt the presence hovering at his back.

“Can I help you two find something?”

Castle turned and saw the petite woman with skinny arms smiling tightly at them. “Yeah,” he said immediately. “You can. Trying to convince my wife to splurge a little.” He grinned charmingly at the woman and she let out a faint echo of the same smile, glancing once to Kate before coming back to him. “We just had twins and I know... you deserve this, honey. Really.” He squeezed her hip and smiled lovingly, though it wasn’t really an act.

“Well, I’m sure we can find you something,” the woman said.

“See?” he encouraged, letting go of Kate. “It’ll be great.” He turned to the woman as if handing Kate off. “You won’t take no for an answer, will you? Thanks. I’ll just... wait out here-”

“Oh, there’s a bench seat in the dressing rooms. You can wait there, and your wife can model whatever we find. How’s that?”

“Perfect,” he smiled. He glanced at Kate and squeezed her wrist, trying to infuse her with strength enough to handle another persistent sales woman. He didn’t think it would look right if he picked out her clothing here, and he didn’t want them making an impression like that.

But he couldn’t be sure that Kate would actually shop if he left her to her own devices.

\-----

Kate forced a smile on her face and nodded to the sales woman. “No, no, I’m fine. This is perfect.”

“You let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you,” Kate said, practically ready to shove the woman out the door. She just wouldn’t go.

“And just to let you know, we’re having a sale on our embroidered tops, buy one get one half off. It’s a great deal. If you need-”

“Thank you,” Kate forced out. “I’ll let you know. You’ve been very helpful.”

And finally, finally, she was gone.

When the door clicked shut behind her, Kate lifted her shaking hands and pressed them against her eyes and cried.

Desperate tears, soundless, leaking out of her without her say. She slumped down to the round ottoman in the corner and tilted her head back, trying to stop the insistent slide of tears, but it was just leaking out. It was just not a thing to be stopped.

She just cried.

When it felt like it was coming to an end, Kate mechanically stood again and began stripping off her leggings. Her head was aching again from the tears, and her eyes were bloodshot; she felt like shit. She was wearing a new bra under her over-sized t-shirt, and she could see the right strap; no matter how much she arranged her shirt, the straps were in view.

She took the first pair of jeans and stepped into them, one leg at a time, the wet tracks drying on her face. She pulled the jeans up over her ass and swiped at her face with the back of her hand, and then set about zipping up and buttoning the jeans.

Fine. They were fine. They fit. Kinda. The waist gaped at the back.

Kate took them off and refolded them, pulled out the second pair. Same ordeal of putting them on, same problem.

She sank back to the ottoman and put her elbows on her knees, buried her head in her hands. She couldn’t do this. She’d been pretending and it had gotten her through the drive, gotten her through that restaurant and his house and his shower even. But she wasn’t this woman; she wasn’t able to be this woman, even pretending. 

“Kate.”

She jerked her head up and - of course - there was Castle. “Stop doing that.”

He slipped inside the dressing room and she saw he had, damn, armloads of clothes with him. Skirts, dresses, leggings, and blouses - lots of expensive pretty shirts.

“No,” she said, twitching back, away from him. “I’m not trying that on. I’m not doing this. A pair of jeans. I’ll just wear - I’ll wear-”

“What, exactly?” he said. “You don’t have clothes, Kate.”

“I’ll wear your t-shirts. They’re fine.”

“They’re too big,” he said. “But don’t worry, we won’t buy any pajamas. You can keep wearing my shirts to bed.”

She scowled at him, but warmth flirted with her insides, made her stomach flutter in a way she couldn’t figure out - good or bad.

“How are those jeans?” he said, hanging shirts up on the bar inside the dressing room. “Stand up, sweetheart. Let me see.”

“You’re such a bully,” she muttered. “They don’t fit. Nothing fits.” She groaned and closed her eyes, hearing herself, how she sounded. A whiny brat.

Castle’s fingers touched her neck and her eyes flew open; he caressed up to her jaw and smiled at her. “Might not fit, no. But we can get them altered if we have to. Will you... let me see, sweetheart? I thought I could help - make it faster if there are two of us instead of one.”

She chewed hard on her bottom lip and finally nodded, avoiding his eyes as she stood for his inspection. Not like she hadn’t done that a hundred times before, but with Castle studying her, it was different.

It was just different.

He hooked his fingers in the back of her waistband, tugged. “Too big. But they fit really well in the thighs, and the length is good. If that’s the best we can do, we can get the waist taken in, love. So put these to one side and try the next pair.”

Kate obeyed. It was easier to obey; it always had been. She turned her brain off and she went through the motions. But with Castle - it was just harder to stay off. She kept getting turned - on.

Kate flushed and glanced at him over her shoulder. He was leaning against the side of the dressing room, watching her, and she thought maybe he was turned on too. Or at least enjoying himself.

She bent over to scoop up the next pair and let him see a little more of her ass as she did, taking her time with it. Like she had to unfold the jeans before she straightened up again.

Castle’s fingers skimmed low on her back, dusting the top of her white cotton underwear.

She should’ve gotten some stupid panties. Fuck, he was going to be seeing them all the time (she hoped). She should have thought of it.

“Next pair,” Castle prompted. His voice sounded raspy. 

She stepped into the next pair and glanced his way. 

Oh, yes. His eyes were that slate blue, that dark storms color that meant he was this-close to grabbing her by the hips and tugging her against his groin.

Well. Trying on clothes just got way more enticing.

\-----

She had color in her cheeks, and her eyes kept catching his in the mirror. She liked him looking, evaluating, and she liked his reactions.

He should never have sent her off with the sales woman; he should have led her around and picked things out from the beginning. He’d thought it would look bad, but how bad could it be if she could keep it together like this?

“Skinny jeans,” he said, reading the tag on her ass. He tugged the ribbon attached to her belt loop that gave the size and style, and she tumbled back into his chest. “Babe, skinny jeans look hot on you.”

“Yeah,” she said. No longer a question anymore either. He really - desperately - liked that. Confidence.

Castle skimmed his hand from her hip, the paper tag rustling, and brought his fingers to the strong lines of her abs. Her stomach muscles twitched under his touch. He tucked his chin down against her neck and kissed her jaw softly.

Kate sucked in a breath and her hands came to frame his, one at her hip, one at her stomach, and he could feel the tremor run down her spine.

“Will you try on that black shirt with lace at the back? For me?”

“Hmm,” she hummed, as if thinking it over. He lifted his eyes to hers in the mirror and she was all fire and ice, burning. “We’ll see. You go get me another pair of jeans in this style and when you get back...”

“Yeah,” he echoed gruffly, nipping his teeth at her neck before sliding his hands away. He hated to stop touching - he wanted to touch everything, all of her - but he wasn’t looking to make this hard for either of them.

Just keep her distracted. “There’s that v-neck t-shirt that’s so soft-”

“Don’t push your luck, Rick Castle.” She flashed him a smile as she turned around. The back of her hand brushed his crotch - entirely on purpose - as she pushed on his hips to get him moving. “Go.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he grinned back, winking at her as he slipped out of the door again.

He ran right into the sales woman; her mouth dropped open and then slammed shut again. She held out a stack of jeans in styles he and Kate had dismissed about four fittings ago.

“I was going to offer her these,” the woman said.

“She yelled for me,” Castle said, lying quickly. “I got her the size she needed in the style she liked - the skinny jeans?”

“Oh. Oh, I should have thought of that. Not everyone can get away with that style, and the flared leg is so in right now...”

“Right,” Castle said. “There’s one of those too, I think.” He knew there was. “I’m just gonna get her the other one. She also made me get a bunch of shirts to try on.”

“You don’t have to do that - I’m more than willing to assist-”

“You got her started; it’s great; don’t worry. I think she enjoys bossing me around.” He winked at the woman and gave her his best smile - not too smarmy, just enough charming little boy.

She flushed and clutched the stack of jeans against her chest. “Well, at least let me get the skinny jeans for you. I’ll pass them along to you, and you can hand them over.”

“Oh, sure! That’d be great. She’s a zero tall in the skinny jeans. She said dark wash? I think two pairs.” She hadn’t said two pairs; she had told him three pairs of jeans was too much, but it barely put a dent in what she needed.

“Very good,” the sales woman said, on an even keel again now that she had a mission. She raced off and Castle slipped out after her, heading for the wall of shorts. Now that he knew her size, he plucked a pair of jean shorts, a white pair, a black, and a cute pair of green that looked something like his combat pants. But these would come not even to mid-thigh and she’d be the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in camouflage.

Castle caught the eye of the sales woman and headed over to her; she’d collected two more pairs of dark wash skinny jeans, and he added the shorts. “Can we go ahead and ring these up? I think if we wait to the very end of the fashion show, we’ll never get out of here.”

“Of course,” the woman beamed. He knew it would look good if she had two large sales, so she didn’t question him at all. He followed her to the register and the woman didn’t even try to smalltalk him to death; she just scanned the clothes, didn’t offer the buyers’ club card, and told him the total.

He handed over his credit card without blinking an eye, flipped open his wallet to show her his ID. She swiped his card and then checked his ID, all superficially, and then gave him back the card even as she bagged his items.

“I’ll put the receipt in here,” she told him. She was folding tissue paper over each pair of shorts and Castle had to keep from rolling eyes. “Keep it from getting mixed up.”

Keep you from shoplifting, she meant. He didn’t care.

“Thanks. I’ll leave the bag here, actually, until we make our final purchase. If you don’t mind?”

“Oh, no, sir. Of course. Here, sign at the bottom and I’ll put it all together for you.”

He signed his name sloppily - his ID name - and then he grinned and handed her back the pen and slip. She gave some banal reply and Castle turned back for the fitting rooms, plucking from the racks two skirts and a dress as he went.

Castle got back to the dressing room door, rapped softly with his knuckles. “Babe? It’s me. Found something.”

“Shit,” she cursed from within. But she unlocked the door and he slipped inside, his words deserting him when he saw her.

The black lace shirt draped elegantly over her angular shoulders, made her lines look regal, her throat look vulnerable, her skin delicate and tasty. Without looking at what he was doing, Castle hung up the skirts and dress on the bar, vision filled with her. Tight jeans, painfully narrow thighs, the fall of that black shirt over her breasts.

He cleared his throat and reached out for her hips, the rough material of her jeans sending jolts of electricity through his arms. He kept her just far enough away to look at her, fill up with her, and then he stepped in and slid his hands under that shirt, up her bare back to the soft soft satin of her bra.

“What?” she whispered against his collarbone. “What are you thinking?”

“God,” he croaked, lips hovering close to her cheekbone. “You’re tall.”

She choked a laugh and crashed her forehead into his chin, her arms coming around him. “I’m tall.”

He gripped her back, that hot bare skin and the cool drape of material across his forearms. “You make me speechless.” He released her and played his fingers down her spine and over the curve of her waist to her stomach, up to the satin cups of her bra. He could feel her nipples budding hard even through the padded nursing cups, and he turned his mouth down to hers for a kiss.

She stroked her tongue against his. She bumped her hips into his groin. She rolled her body against him and brought her arms around his neck and came up on her toes and the angle of their mouths was sweet and dark and right.

He rubbed his thumbs across her breasts and kissed her, taking from her mouth, working his tongue with hers, the pliancy and strength of her lips. She made soft, terrible noises, and he was getting hot, his skin burning as his blood heated with her scent, her taste.

She broke from him first, teeth catching his bottom lip, his chin, his jaw as she explored down. “Tall.”

“Yeah,” he rasped. His voice felt as dark as his need. “Those legs go on for miles.”

“What a cliche. I think you can do better.”

“I want to eat off your thighs.”

“Shit.”

He grinned and licked the soft shell of her ear. She shivered hard and crushed her body to his, his hands trapped under her shirt.

“Let’s see the others,” he told her softly, blowing into her ear so that she mewled this time with it. “I want to see it all on you. The skirts, the dress, the shirts. I want to think about what it will look like when I carefully peel them off your body.”

\-----

Hell.

She loved this jacket. Navy leather moto and with the skinny jeans and the soft-as-skin white t-shirt that wrapped around her ribs and God, she felt like someone else. She wasn’t her, she was... sliding her sunglasses down onto her face and stepping through the throngs and-

Well. Not really. She was daydreaming in front of the cash register while she paid for two pairs of jeans, two skirts, a dress, and a handful of beautifully soft shirts (mostly in black and white, she realized, but one purple, one gold-striped, a few navy). None of them had looked boring on her, all of them had seemed like the wardrobe of a different person.

She loved this jacket.

Kate fingered the buttery-soft leather (it was summer; she didn’t need a jacket - she had told him that and yet here it was in the stack again), and she sighed as the sales woman rang it up and carefully passed it to her associate to wrap in tissue paper. Black and white tissue paper in a herringbone pattern.

“Rick,” she murmured.

He skimmed his fingers at the back of her arm and smiled softly, but he was ignoring her silent plea. It was too much, but he was the one who kept adding things as he found them. He had figured out she liked purple (did she like purple? when she’d been in high school, blue had been her favorite color, but the purple jolted her) and now the leather jacket too.

(But she loved it. She had nothing she loved so much as the look of that jacket, and its deep blue was joy and desire both, the color of his eyes.)

He touched her wrist and skimmed along those small but strong bones. She glanced at him and he smiled, and she sighed then and handed over the credit card to the woman.

When everything was in their crisp paper bag and being handed over to her, she saw Castle take a second bag from the cashier and put it over his shoulder. She opened her mouth to question him - them, someone - but Castle gripped her upper arm and squeezed.

Tightly.

The same way she squeezed the boys when she needed them to shut up and go along, just for now, quietly for now, just to live to see the next night when they could be in her arms. 

She closed her mouth and followed him out of the store, slipping her sunglasses on as he opened the door for her. Two bags. The beautiful soft shirts, that amazing and life-changing jacket, the jeans, the skirts and dress,, the bras, and who knew what else Castle had slid past her, what else was she just not paying enough attention to-

The sudden burst of sunlight dazzled her. A family group were on her before she could move, and they slid around and around her, talking too loudly, two kids jostling her, a woman reaching for them and hitting Kate’s elbow as she yanked a kid back. 

Kate swayed on the sidewalk, in a ratty t-shirt that looked it now, leggings that bunched at the knees, and she had to reach out and clutch the column for support. Her throat closed up.

“Whoa,” Castle said quietly. “Hey, there’s a bench here against the wall. Come sit for a minute.”

She closed her eyes, her pulse thundering.

“Now, Kate. Sit.”

She licked her bottom lip and nodded, pushing past him to sink to the bench, gripping the metal edge and leaning forward to breathe.

“Your heart rate is up,” he said tersely. One of his hands settled on her thigh and the other came to her arm, fingers skimming down to her inside wrist and taking her pulse. “Honey, breathe.”

“I am,” she hissed.

“Okay, okay, just keep breathing.” He rubbed her back as he counted to himself, and she tried to pay attention, to think, but she couldn’t. Her heart was throbbing in her throat, too fast, too fast.

“Cas-stle-”

“You need water; you’re dehydrated. Shit. Did you drink both-”

“Yes,” she growled, but it was a choked noise in her throbbing, pinched throat.

“Shit. I won’t leave you here. Can you stand and walk with me?”

“Yes.” She pushed her hands into her knees and shoved herself upright, her heart beating so fucking hard she was going to die.

“Baby, please-” he whispered, curling his arm around her. “Hang on. Just - stay right here.” He was dragging her down to the bench and her heart skipped, skipped-

“Sit down, Beckett, before you fucking pass out.”

Might be too late.

\-----


	20. Chapter 20

Castle caught her against him and tucked her into his side, his mind racing, his fucking skills completely worthless. He couldn’t - they could not - attract attention here, so close to their cabin in the woods, not after what they’d done.

But Kate’s heart rate was all over the place. She’d passed out because of it. She needed water - but that was a fucking guess - it was all a fucking guess, and what the fuck was he supposed to be doing to help her?

Kate gasped and jerked against him, her arms flailing out hard and cutting him across the chest. He grabbed for her, held her tighter, and something close to a scream ripped from her throat.

“Kate!” he harshed.

She stiffened and withdrew from him, and he let her go, let her go, released her. People had looked, but he barely cared now. She was trembling as she put a hand up to her sunglasses and held them against her face.

“Kate,” he whispered softly. The monitor on his wrist pulsed as her heart skipped a beat but even then he could see it was beginning to steady. It was growing calm once more.

She let out a breath and leaned back against the bench, drawing her arms against her chest. He pushed the bags beneath the bench and shifted to look at her, laid a light hand on her knee and tried to be gentle.

“Kate, honey. You okay?”

She opened her eyes; her face looked drained. “Just happens sometimes,” she murmured.

“Shit.” He scraped a hand down his face, knew somehow that the touch on her knee was all she could take right now. “Not as much though?”

“Used to be every night, wake me...” Kate licked her lips and shifted forward, sitting perfectly upright now as if to prove she could. “I drank the Pedialyte.”

“I believe you,” he said quietly. “We’ll figure this out, honey.”

“Just keep me alive long enough to get the boys clear,” she muttered, her eyes drifting off.

“Not okay with me,” he said, gripping her knee. The monitor pulsed at him - her heart skipping - and he released her knee.

Normal, just that fast.

He frowned and glanced around them, the sidewalk filled with people, the sun filling the horizon, the normality of it all. The stress... everywhere he looked, there was stress. Triggers.

Kate had been in that facility for three years, and not just locked in a room, but locked in a room that his father had designed. John Black. The man who had fucked over the four of them so damn ruthlessly that it had taken a girl to do the job they’d all craved to do.

Three years was more than enough time for John Black to have fucked her over as well.

Who knew what had done it, who knew which one thing, what button Castle had inadvertently pushed that had brought this on.

Ben had done this. He used to curl up in a ball and when Colin had gotten close, Ben had screamed and lashed out. Castle had always thought it was the surgeries, but Colin had been the one trying to get to him, Colin had been trying to touch him.  
Colin could keep his brothers calm with a touch.

Could he do it to Kate? Could Castle?

She was shaking now, the letdown of adrenaline or the aftereffect of a heart attack, but either way, either way, she needed to rest. She needed to sit here and recover for a moment, but the way Kate struggled through, she would never give herself the chance.

Castle touched her wrist and she flinched. He paused until her head turned to him.

“Hey,” he whispered. “The boys are riding around that train, and the tracks pass right by that side with the Gap.”

Her eyes enlivened. She roused, her hand turning into his as if to claim. He laced their fingers together and stroked his thumb over her wrist, waiting until the fight spread from her eyes to her face to her body, felt it in the normal pulse thudding against his fingers.

“Come sit with me until we see them pass,” he said softly, stroking her wrist, not touching anything else of her.

“Yeah,” she said, shifting forward now. She stood, just as she’d forced herself to stand at his command earlier. Only this time, the monitor on his arm pulsed barely at all, and her body - though shaking - was stronger.

Castle grabbed the bags from under the bench and helped her, though she barely needed it now. Anyone who had been watching her and their little drama had already drifted away or lost interest, and Castle walked slowly with her towards the far side of the building.

There was a bench in the sun, but right beside it was an iced lemonade stand that also sold water bottles, and Castle sat her down there. He tucked the bags under her legs, touched the side of her face, and moved towards the cart. He bought two bottles of water and one of the iced lemonades, peeled the top off as he came back to her.

She was shivering now, like she wasn’t sitting in the sun. 

Castle was more certain of it now than ever. He sat down and handed her the opened bottle of water, took a scoop of the iced lemonade with the little sliver of a spoon, and let it cool his tongue. Then he handed it to her and took the water from her, sipped it, gave it back.

“I’m okay,” she said. 

“Of course you are, love.” He nudged her shoulder and nodded to the iced lemonade. “It’s like ice cream but has a nice sour kick.”

She hummed something but finally dug into the cup. He watched her face as she put a spoonful in her mouth and laughed when her lips puckered. She shivered and swallowed hard, coughing as it went down sour too, no doubt.

“Good, huh?”

“Something,” she croaked.

“Next bite is easier.”

“I’m fine.”

He laughed and took the water bottle again, sipped it, then gave it back. She took the hint this time and swallowed some herself, then more, then drained nearly half the bottle.

Much better.

And then the train sounded - a minor little horn blowing from down the way - but Kate flinched so hard the water sloshed in the bottle. Good thing she’d drunk so much of it.

The train came down the tracks, a bright blue engine with the requisite smokestack and broad wheels with their yellow gears turning. Next were the open-air passenger cars, not any bigger than a golf cart really, seats the same, and little kids riding with a parent or older sibling.

“Oh,” she said. “There they are.” She laughed and sat forward, suddenly completely different, suddenly happy, relieved, relaxed, all of it. He glanced at the watch first and the heart monitor was smooth and steady, and so was Kate.

“There they are,” he said, looking up. He found Colin sitting in between either boy, both of them looking practically slack-jawed at the ride. Castle waved, not sure what had come over him, and Colin rolled his eyes, seeing him immediately.

“Oh, they’re so thrilled,” Kate laughed. She lifted her hand and gave this little flickering of her fingers, as if she couldn’t possible wave her arm as ridiculously as Castle.

Or draw attention to herself and the boys.

Castle waved again, and Colin huffed and leaned over, said something to Wyatt. The boy jerked upright, and then caught sight of them. He babbled something and lifted both arms over his head. James crawled into Colin’s lap, or Colin let him, and the boy gave that clutching fingers wave, gimme gimme.

Kate was grinning wide, and she stood up to keep them in sight as the train passed by the row of storefronts and on down the tracks.

Castle relaxed, took the iced lemonade from the bench and dug his spoon into it, hacking at the frozen treat until he could get a piece. Kate sank back down to the bench and he watched her, the love on her face that subsumed all other emotions.

She turned to him and smiled. “They’ve never been on a train.”

He didn’t need to say of course they haven’t - not right now, not when she was suffused with light again. “They were having fun.”

“Yeah,” she grinned, taking the water bottle again and sipping it.

She was beautiful, and so damn strong it was amazing. She blew his mind, again and again. How she kept coming back, how she kept fighting.

She’d had so much taken from her, and it killed him to think his father touched her even now. That his father’s reach extended even here, in the sunlight and the radiance of her love for those boys.

Castle was supposed to have shielded her. He was supposed to protect her from this, and all he could do was-

Armor her.

She was as strong and deadly as a blade, and now she needed some damn armor.

“Hey, eat this,” he said, handing over the iced lemonade. “And I’ll be right back, baby. Gotta do something.”

“What?” she said, bewildered but taking the iced lemonade he’d handed off.

Castle touched his lips to her cheek. “Love you,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back for you. Watch for the boys. They’ll be coming around in ten minutes.”

Her mouth dropped open and he grinned as he stood, leaving her to the lemonade and the bench and the train tracks. 

\-----

She was alone.

For the first time in one thousand days, Kate Beckett was alone and free.

The sunglasses hid her eyes, transformed her face into a stranger with confidence, and the heels of her ballet flats kicked the bags resting under the bench.

She had a credit card. She had clothes. She had an empty line of sight and a parking lot filled with waiting vehicles. She could rip off the sensors and tear off the price tags and yank the rubber band from her hair.

She could simply stand up and walk away.

Kate drew in a breath of that air, that rare and unbelievable air, and she closed her eyes. The high-pitched drone of people, too many people, the thud of store doors closing, the ding of entry bells, the chatter of the register, the thumps of footfalls, the silence that circled in her head, silence, absolute silence.

She opened her eyes and was accosted by the colors here. Garish smears of unnatural color. Rents in the fabric of her vision. Jagged wounds pulsing with disorder.

She stood up, just to see if her legs would hold her, just to test the flex of her restraints.

But there were no restraints.

Kate stood before the bench in a paralysis of awakening, and slowly her eyes adjusted until she saw the outlet mall before her. A mall. Stores. Locals and tourists, children and parents, teenagers swaggering, bland and uniform. Mostly white. A certain thread of Hispanic that jarred the picture. The rare black family, all the more forgettable because of how well they fit in, unlike the other ethnic minorities.

She was forming a report in her head; she was breaking down the scene into its computable parts. She was assessing the damage and the danger and she was tensing for the strike.

She expected him to rise up before her and take her back.

Kate clenched her fists and found she was still holding the iced lemonade.

She blinked and her vision blurred, slid away from her, ran like blood. She was freezing; goose bumps raced across her arms, pinched her nipples so that her chest ached. She sucked in a breath that rattled, her thigh muscles quivered; she sat hard on the bench.

The blade in her fingers, the blade slitting under her nail as she got hold of it finally, the self-satisfaction in his eyes as he caressed her throat, the chill of disapproval as he delivered the news like a blow you’ve done it now and then the spurt of hot blood as she’d delivered her blow.

The blade cutting her to ribbons as she’d hacked at his throat, the same place he’d touched her, and then the jarring thick sound as she’d stabbed his eye and pinned it, squishing and juicy, to the back of his socket.

Standing over him, coated in the grime of his dying, and then hesitating when the security door opened and death came for her.

I wanted to die.

But Castle. Castle.

She blinked and the grin on his blood-spackled face distorted, became the sun she was staring into. She grunted and batted her lids to remove the streaks in her vision, jerked her head. Breathed.

The cup of iced lemonade had numbed her fingers when the whistle sounded and the kids’ train rolled through again; she dropped the melting cup without feeling it. The boys were looking for her this time and they both waved, using their whole bodies to do it, so thrilled to see her.

She pressed a kiss to her shockingly cold fingers, not able to even feel her lips, and gave it away to them. Colin clutched his heart with wide-eyed stupefaction, and she actually laughed.

The boys laughed; the boys beamed back at her and craned their necks as the train made its slow loop away and she sank back against the bench and pressed her chilled fingers to her lips to keep from crying.

“Miss me?”

She turned her head and there was Castle with another damn bag, but Castle, Castle, and he sank down to the bench grinning at her like he had when he’d seen Black blackened with blood, and he took her hand from her mouth and replaced it with his own.

“Tastes sour and sweet,” he murmured, and then licked lightly at her bottom lip.

“Don’t leave me alone,” she cried out into his almost-kiss. “You cant’t let me be alone. I’ll do something bad. I almost-”

“You were never alone,” he husked. His mouth burned as it rubbed against hers. “I could see you the whole time. You stood to see the train as it came around the track and then you sat down hard, but you were fine.”

She stared at his mouth. Her fingers were warming in his grip. She caught his bottom lip with her teeth hard enough to taste blood and she suckled at the wound until it resisted her and closed up, stopped bleeding.

“I was fine,” she echoed, and she slid her tongue against his to remind herself.

\-----

When the train had come around once more and Colin was giving him death-glares that meant hurry this up you ass, Castle finally reached into the bag. He had made two quick trips - one to the store where she’d bought the bras, and one to a little jewelry store just beside the Gap where they were sitting now.

He hadn’t seen her every second of that time, but for most of it. Enough to know. Enough to keep her shielded.

“I got you something, love.” He opened his hand and held it out to her. 

Kate lifted her head from his shoulder. Stared down at the thing between them.

He’d bought her a ring.

“What... the hell is this?” she croaked. If she’d meant to sound firm or scathing, it didn’t come off that way.

“Armor,” he said. “It’s just a simple gold band. You wear it and it gives you protection.”

“This isn’t Tolkien,” she choked out, stiffening as she drew away from him.

“I... don’t know what that is,” he admitted. “But what I do know? You’re damn good at playing the cover. Give you a legend, and you can do anything, be anything. So I’m giving you the cover story. You can be her until you can be you.”

Kate was silent, staring down at the ring in the black velvet box. It was simple; it really was. Nothing like what he’d get her for real, but it was enough to give her the sense of things. The legend that was a new identity.

“Who is she?” Kate asked. The tips of her fingers dusted the metal of the ring, a barely there pressure.

Castle slid his thumb into the gold circle and pulled it from the velvet, touched her left finger with his thumb so that the ring teetered there between them. “A wife, mother of two boys, who’s here to buy new clothes. Maybe she got sick and was in the hospital for a long time, and the boys and her husband are just so glad she’s out and doing better.”

Kate let out a breath and glanced up at him. “A legend?”

“That’s the name for it. Build a legend for your cover ID. All the details, the backstory. Past is prologue.”

Her lips twitched. “And I put this on and what?”

“You become her. Take her on, like any of the rest of this stuff we’ve bought today. Jeans, shirts, ring. You use it like armor, babe.”

“Like a crutch.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s only what everyone else here is doing.” He gestured to the whole mall of people buying things, things, objects and more objects. “Clothing themselves in an identity that gives them the confidence and good feeling to get through their boring, meaningless existences.”

She cut him a sharp look, frowning. “You don’t believe that.”

He shrugged, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He didn’t believe it, not entirely. Something Black had drummed into him, a way of looking at the world as a tool to further his mission. “No, I don’t believe that, not really. But you buy a persona when you go shopping - you buy in to their brand because it makes you feel good, it’s what you want your life to look like. That’s advertising.”

“And what am I advertising?”

“You belong,” he said, setting his jaw. To me. To us. “You have an identity, well-defined, and with specific parameters. It makes this whole... world easy. You can do it when you know who you are and what your mission is.”

Kate’s finger flicked upwards and it caused the ring to slide down to her knuckle. “My mission,” she murmured.

“Eight week mission,” he clarified. She was so set on that damn deadline that she couldn’t see past it. “For now.”

Kate pressed her lips together and stared furiously down at the gold band. After a second, she looked up at him and gave him a tight nod. “Okay.” Her finger lifted from the tip of his thumb and the ring settled deeper on her knuckle. “Should I choose to accept it, huh?”

He blanked. Her lips curled into a smile and she reached up, pushed the ring down onto her finger as she leaned into him. He missed the moment she slid it home, but that was just fine. Her lips were flirting with his, skimming barely over the surface so that her mouth was just a tease, her kiss a suggestion.

He slid his hand to the back of her neck, lightly, not tugging, just cradling her until she pressed in.

She pressed in and kissed him, softly, sweetly, like she had the legend so well ingrained it was a part of her.

\-----

The ring was awkward at first, not heavy so much as always there - when she scraped a hand through her hair, when she grabbed for the railing near the train depot, when she curled her fingers around James’s cheek. 

She was having to get used to it.

They walked away from the children’s train depot, James walking with determination beside her, his hand in hers, the rest of the adults slowing down to appease his independence.

Wyatt was curled up in Colin’s arms, his cheek against the man’s shoulder. His eyes were open as he looked at her, but he didn’t move from his spot, so close to falling asleep. “Mama,” he mumbled.

“Hey, baby,” she said softly, smiling at him. He blinked heavy eyelids and struggled to stay awake. Castle shifted between them and put his hand on Wyatt’s back, said something to Colin she didn’t hear.

She could feel the ring as she held James’s hand; his fingers were curled around hers, his palm sticky from something Colin had bought for him. She wiggled his hand and James glanced up at her, giving his shy smile, but instead of burying his face in her thigh, he gave a little lurching run forward.

She had to hustle to catch up, not hold him back, and the sun that striped over the sidewalk caught his face. He seemed to want to run between the slashes of light, and she could see the grin as it settled into his eyes. 

She released his hand, thinking he wanted to run ahead, certain Castle could catch him if it was necessary. But James halted in his tracks and came back to her, running to embrace her knees, giving her a grunt of disapproval.

“Okay, okay,” she said, skimming her fingers in his hair. They had all stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to wait on them - her fault - but neither Castle nor Colin looked upset about it. Merely waiting.

James clutched the bottom of her shirt and tugged, and Castle came and squatted before him. “Hey, buddy, Mommy can’t lift you. Come up here with me. I’ll carry you out to the car.”

Kate blinked and Castle had already tugged James away and lifted him into his arms. James leaned out for her, so Kate caught his hands in hers and kissed them. “Stay with - daddy,” she stuttered.

It had just come out of her mouth. The ring was on her finger. That was the story; wasn’t it?

Castle beamed; his face lit up and he cupped the side of James’s face and kissed the boy. His son. It was his son. That wasn’t just a story.

He brushed his hand to the back of her arm and tugged a little, still smiling while James wriggled down into his chest. He didn’t take her hand; she was completely free while both brothers carried the boys and the bags and everything they’d acquired on this trip.

Kate was free.

The ring on her finger wasn’t a restraint at all; it was exactly what he’d said it was. A cover. Armor for the mission.

She made a face at James over his father’s shoulder and the boy grinned back at her. She let her eyes wander from his happy face to the outlet mall around them. The shops were fancy, boutique kind of stores while the merchandise inside was seriously expensive stuff. She’d gotten everything she needed; Castle had even gone back for a few pairs of underwear. He’d shown her an array of colors in the bottom of the bag.

Bouncing on her toes a little, she could see the playground coming up ahead of them, and the hut where they had both gotten sunglasses. A gift from Colin. She glanced his way and saw he was rubbing Wyatt’s back with a hand, almost unconsciously, and she realized even Colin could do this - be someone else, be what the boys needed.

She chewed on her lip and her eyes caught the sign ahead of them. Kate quickened her steps and grabbed Castle’s free arm. He turned, his gaze questioning.

“Hey,” she said, nodding towards the store coming up. “Shoes?”

Castle let out a laugh and glanced down at her feet. “Yeah. I forgot. You’re right. Shoes. We’ll all go. Colin?”

“Damn,” he muttered, but he still cradled Wyatt in his arms. He was still holding the boy against him.

Kate smiled, the ring on her finger putting energy in her steps, and she moved towards the door of the Geox, pulling it open with ease.

She could do this. This woman could do this.

\-----

Kate shifted in the passenger seat beside him. She was nearly asleep while he drove them back, but she kept opening her eyes to look at the boys in the middle seat. 

“They’re asleep,” he said quietly, reaching over and taking her hand. He squeezed and she hummed, let her eyes close again. “Good haul, Kate.”

“Yeah,” she murmured. Her eyes opened again. She smiled at him. “It worked.”

“Worked?”

She wriggled her fingers at him. “My armor. Worked.”

He grinned back at her, but he had to keep his eyes on the road. “I got a lot of good ideas. You should listen to me.”

She laughed, but it was a tired thing, trailing off into a sigh. He didn’t mind; they had done a lot today and he hoped to keep her in bed for a while. Days. Well, for as long as she needed it, that was for sure, and then just - an easy life for once.

Damn. For a few weeks here, he just wanted to convince her to take it easy. 

The drive home seemed shorter than the one out there, but by the time he pulled up to the footbridge and parked the car on the gravel before the garage, Kate was entirely asleep. He turned off the ignition and the engine ticked as it cooled, the cessation of air-conditioning immediately noticeable.

“All asleep,” Colin said quietly from the back. 

Castle turned and looked at his brother who was leaning forward between the boys’ car seats. Colin had his elbows propped on each captain’s chair, but his eyes were trained on the view out the window.

“Thanks for doing this,” Castle told him. “And for - making it easier on her.”

“I still owe her,” Colin said, shrugging.

“But I know it’s not easy for you, the ocean I’ve dumped you in with us.”

Colin’s jaw worked, but he tilted his head in a kind of no matter. But his brother glanced through the window again. “I’ll help you get everything inside, and then I’m gonna head out for a few.”

“Days or hours?” Castle said, turning around, not looking at his brother.

“I don’t know.”

At least that was honest. Colin had always been honest; he had never tried to pretend. Unlike Castle.

“All right,” Castle said finally, and opened the driver’s-side door. He put his boots to the gravel and got out, shut the car door gently to keep from jostling Kate. He opened the back door and found that Colin had already unbuckled James, so Castle reached in and unwound the harness from the boy’s arms. 

He pulled James out of the seat and against his chest, and then he reached for whatever bag was closest. Colin crept out on this side, jumped to the gravel, straightened up. He went around to get Wyatt out of the other side and Castle headed for the bridge.

The walk across was quiet and cool, a breeze coming up off the water. It had gone down somewhat during the night, but it was still much more stream than creek. James was sweaty with sleep, plastered against Castle’s chest with that dark hair brushing Castle’s jaw. 

He unlocked the gate and went through, leaving it open for Colin behind him, and he headed for the front door with the keys. It was something of an awkward balance, the boy asleep in one arm, a couple bags in the other, but he opened the front door and was met by the welcoming stillness of the cabin.

It really was more like a castle. He and Colin had planned this out in their heads for years - mostly when they were boys, teenagers, dreaming of escape and not really knowing what that might look like. When Colin had started building this place on his own, he’d called it a cabin, telling Castle it was just a lark, it wasn’t a big deal.

And then Col had gotten in trouble, and there’d been some gang issues and the drugs, and Castle had dragged him out here to dry out - and found all this. Half-completed, barely thought through, needing work. So they’d finished it up together and Colin had gotten his drug use under control again and they’d made this beautiful place that his father knew nothing about.

Had known. Black was dead.

Castle shook off the sensation and headed for the back hall and his own bedroom, carrying James through the cabin. He dropped the bags at the closet door and mounted the stone steps, brought James upstairs to the bedroom.

He had to step over the still-closed baby gate - he hoped Colin remembered to look out for it - to get to the main room, and when he lowered James to the mattress, he realized he didn’t have that rag doll.

It was still in the backpack for safe-keeping. He brushed his hand over James’s sweaty head. “I’ll go get it. Be right back.”

When he stood, Colin was coming up the steps after him with Wyatt in his arms. Castle gestured to the toddler bed, noting that Wyatt didn’t have his rabbit either. Hopefully still in the floorboards of the car.

“Put him there, I’ve got to run back for their stuffed animals.”

Colin snickered at him, but Castle didn’t care. If it made the boys sleep easier, then that meant Kate wouldn’t be disturbed. So he hustled back down the stairs, through the living room, and out the front door.

Kate was coming across the bridge, the backpack slung over her shoulder, a bag dangling from her fingers. She quirked a smile at him and he grinned back, not realizing until just that moment how relieved he was to see her heading towards him.

Towards him. She didn’t have to keep walking towards him. She had the car, the keys on the front seat waiting for Colin, the clothes. She could’ve gone; she had wanted to be left behind.

Kate met him at the gate and came up on her toes, pressed a soft kiss to the spot under his jaw where it met his ear. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“Anything,” he sighed back, drawing an arm around her. “James needs his rag doll; it was in this bag-”

“I grabbed the rabbit from the floor too,” she said, her lips right against his neck. “I want to tuck them in. If you don’t mind.”

“Go,” he said quietly, releasing her. She gave him a dazzling look - all bubbling up happiness, joy, and he thought he saw a little relief in her eyes too. “I’m gonna finish unloading the car.”

He skimmed his fingers at her hip as he moved past her, and he couldn’t help turning around on the bridge, walking backwards a few paces just to watch her step into his home.

He just wanted her to stay.

\-----

When Castle had dumped the last of the bags before the closet, he still hadn’t seen Kate in the house. He climbed the steps to the tower room, rubbing the back of his neck where he might have gotten sunburned. It had begun to itch as it healed, and he had to resist scratching.

He cleared the top of the steps and immediately found Kate. She had fallen asleep before the boys’ bed, her cheek against the low mattress, her hand on Wyatt’s back.

Castle sighed and went towards her, knelt before her at the bed. He carefully brushed the hair back from her face and she roused, her eyes fluttering open.

“Hey, there,” he whispered. “Bed might be more comfortable, love.”

Her fingers curled on Wyatt’s back and then she withdrew her hand, rolled until her back hit the side of the toddler’s bed. He offered her his hand and she took it; he pulled her to sit and then brought her to stand with him.

She swayed a moment before she caught her balance, gripping his arm as she did. He cupped the back of her head and his thumb dusted the back of her ear, giving her a moment, trying to seduce her into coming downstairs with him.

Seduce might not be the word for it. He had no intention of doing anything like that when they’d had a day like this.

“Tired,” she murmured. Her head tucked into the curve of his neck.

Castle thumbed the shell of her ear, her hair soft as it fell over the back of his hand. “Bed downstairs?”

She didn’t answer, her forehead touching his jaw. He combed her hair back and trailed his fingers down her neck, laid his palm between her shoulder blades to bring her closer to him.

“I need to nurse,” she said, squirming against him. Her breasts must be sensitive, or aching again; she was trying to avoid leaning into him. “I - they’re asleep for the night?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “But we haven’t fed them dinner, so I bet they’ll wake hungry.”

“Should I wake them now?” she asked.

“Up to you, sweetheart.” He dropped his hand to rest at her lower back, flirting with the rise of her ass but trying not to be suggestive about it. “If you want to wake them, we’ll do that.”

She sighed. 

Was it too much? Parents usually made decisions together, a little back and forth, but he had just dumped it off on her, to let her deal alone. “Kate, we have a couple of options. If you need to express milk, we can-”

Kate shivered, turned her head away from him. “Don’t - say it like that. I can’t...”

“Okay, baby, look.” He cupped her face in his hands, brought her eyes back to meet his. “I will gladly relieve the ache, any time at all.” His thumbs brushed over her cheekbones the way he cupped and stroked her breasts and he saw by her eyes that she felt that. “Or we wake the boys and I get to watch you nurse them. Or - if you want to wait it out, until they wake on their own, then maybe it will start to dry up your milk. Options, yeah?”

She let out a shaky breath. “Yeah.”

He dropped one hand and brought it to her hip, angled her into him. She shivered again when he pressed her against his chest, and he could feel the fullness of her breasts. The weight of them. Felt good against him, his body already responding.

“I guess I should wait,” she murmured. “Try to wean them. That’s - okay with the elixir stuff?”

“Yeah,” he said. 

“My heart...”

“I think that’s something else,” he admitted.

Kate jerked back against his arm, her eyes burning into his. “What else?”

He winced and glanced at the boys. “Let’s go downstairs to talk, okay? This is going to be a longer conversation.”

“What else, Castle?”

“It’s PTSD, Kate.”

She blinked, her face completely blank. “What is that?”

“Shell shock? It’s-”

“Sh-shell shock?” she gasped. “But I’m not - a soldier.”

He traced the back of her arm with his fingers until he found her hand, tugged on her as he stepped away. “Come with me, love. Please. We can talk downstairs.”

She resisted for a heartbeat, standing mutinous before the boys’ bed, but he stopped, and he waited for her to make up her mind, and she finally came with him.

“You think it’s all in my head,” she said grimly.

Castle turned halfway down the stairs, caught the side of her face even as she flinched. “No.” He made sure she was looking in his eyes, that she wasn’t ducking away. “No, Kate. It’s not all in your head. It’s real. It’s how our minds cope with the horror and trauma we’ve been dealt. And you’re not alone in it.”

Kate’s teeth caught her bottom lip and she glanced away, gathering herself, he thought. She let out a breath and then looked back at him. “All right. We talk. And then...”

“And then we’ll have a better idea of what to do for you. For the boys too.”

He turned around and started down the stairs, and this time she followed without a second’s hesitation.

\-----

Kate pressed her spine to the headboard, both of them sitting cross-legged on top of the covers, but Castle facing her now. He looked very serious, grave. His knees touched hers and he put his fingertips there, stroking lightly.

She was not comforted. “Tell me.” He had put the laptop in her hands and given her the section of her medical record to read, but it made no sense to her. “You tell me. I don’t understand this.”

He scowled, but she knew it wasn’t at her. The light touch of his fingers against her knees helped. Castle took a deep breath. “Okay, well, I think you ought to hear the story of how we got here.”

Kate felt her shoulders relax, and she knew she was defensive, but she couldn’t seem to help it. She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, tried to ignore the feeling that she needed to leave. Leave. There was no place to go, but out of her own head. 

She couldn’t do that. “How we got here,” she said.

“Well, first of all, me and my brothers.”

Kate leaned back against the headboard, nodded.

His fingers slid across her knee, soothing. Maybe soothing himself too. “Alex and Ben were older when our father took them. They both remember their mothers, but Alex’s was an addict - well, that’s what he called her. I don’t know that for sure. He seemed glad to be away from her. Which says enough. Alex had been abused - he had scars until... until he didn’t.”

“Scars?”

“Cigarette burns. Her dealers, her johns, something like that. Alex doesn’t talk about himself like that. This was mostly what Colin and I could figure out. Alex always says that our father rescued him. I don’t think... I don’t think he’s entirely wrong. But rescued him to what?”

“That’s pretty awful,” she whispered. “Alex. No wonder he...”

“Yeah,” Castle sighed, bowing his head. “I never - well, let’s go in a straight line. Alex is one of his genetic offspring - we found out that much. So however our father managed - whatever he did, he left Alex there with her for too long. Maybe he never intended to get her pregnant, and when he did, he didn’t go back. We don’t know. We’ll never know.”

“But he did come back. He got Alex.”

“When Alex was eight. Took Ben at the same time, and Ben was about six. They were put into a kind of boarding school at first, straightened them out. Military - usually for delinquents.”

“Did they know each other?”

“He introduced them,” Castle muttered, shaking his head. “Told them it would be a competition. See which one deserved his attention.”

“God.”

Castle nodded, his eyes like flint. “That’s how he started us all. Competitions. Between the four of us. Who could prove himself a man, worthy. Bunch of bullshit, but we were too young to know better.”

She leaned forward, her hands sliding past his and gripping his upper thighs. “You were raised by him. You couldn’t have known. That’s exactly what I didn’t want for those boys. To not know anything different.”

“You did good.” He gripped her knees and then grabbed her forearms, squeezing, before he let her go. 

Under her hands, she could feel the strength of his muscles at his thighs and she dragged her hands back into her lap, elbows propping her up.

Castle echoed her posture, and she could see him gathering his thoughts. “My mother... I don’t remember her. I was taken to a facility when I was three. Ben was ten, Alex was twelve. They didn’t want to have anything to do with me. They hazed me, the new kid, but our father would sit me down and explain how I had to be as good as my older brothers.”

“Facility,” she prompted, interrupting him for details. She found herself craving his story, what had happened to him, how it was like her own. It made her feel better to know that she wasn’t alone in this - just as he’d said. 

“Not exactly like yours, but really close. It was in Virginia, near DC. He was working on the elixir long before the brothers, before us. He’d tried out a few versions on military projects, and then he pumped us full of it and sent us through training courses and intelligence and - all kinds of things. Stupid puzzles. Obstacle courses. I remember doing a session with a man I called Pops - throwing knives - when I was four.”

“You remember a lot of it?”

He nodded. “Everything. Nothing before meeting Alex and Ben for the first time, but every single second after. Alex said that based on my records, Black had me injected with elixir when I was a newborn, though I don’t know how he got to me. Have no idea about my origins.”

“He raised you,” she sighed. Sitting before her was a man those boys could’ve turned out to be. Or Colin. Or... worse than that, Alex and Ben - twisted up, confused, unhappy. Drugs. Colin used drugs to calm his effects.

“He raised us - but very hands off. There was boarding schools - military academies - while he did whatever his job was. And then... I don’t know when it happened, but our time outside got to be shorter and shorter and inside was - a series of medical procedures.”

Kate stiffened. She couldn’t help it - it was like an instinct, a reflex. All in her head?

“Alex and Ben - they - they didn’t take to the elixir like Colin and I did. They had surgeries. A lot of - trial and error, Alex has told me. Trying to make their bodies accept the program.”

“Oh, God.”

“Ben was - the worst. I don’t know what all happened, but eventually I think Black just quit trying with him. Ben doesn’t talk about it. Alex is his - well, his brother. Alex keeps his secrets. Ben went into computer engineering and mechanics and - he’s very very smart. Scarily so. But I don’t think he’s entirely right in the head.”

Kate stared at him, unable to fathom... but she could. She could fathom it. Surgeries, not knowing, waking drugged and without any clue of what was being done to you. She could.

Her hands were shaking. She pressed them flat to her knees.

“Colin...” Castle shook his head. “I’m going to keep his secrets. But I can tell you a few things. He has to use to keep his head clear. He was the one who - his side effects of the elixir were things we never told our father. He and I - we kept it to ourselves. I don’t think Alex knows, but Ben has some idea. He’s too smart to not know.”

“Poor Col,” she husked. “The - the sensing stuff - that’s because of this elixir?”

“Working theory,” he said, giving her a frail smile. She could read the years of abuse and fear and fight in that one smile. How hard he must have fought just to achieve this much stability, this much balance and steadiness. 

She had no idea how he’d done it.

“It started when Colin was a kid, or at least, that was when he could give a voice to what was going on in his head. Probably was earlier. James does some of the same stuff Col did when he was a baby-”

“A baby?” she said sharply. “When did Colin-”

“A baby,” he said, nodding. A quiver went through his face and the corner of his lips lifted. “I used to carry him around with me. I protected him.”

“You still do,” she murmured. She’d seen it already. 

He shrugged. “He started talking to me about it. I have to admit - I didn’t entirely believe him. I mean, I did. I knew it was real. He told me things about my own thinking that not even I understood at the time. Not full sentences or nothing, but he knew if I had a shitty day, felt my pain.”

“James does the same stuff?” she prompted.

“Going to you when you’re sad. Unable to - when he didn’t want to be near Colin when Colin was ramped up that night. When Col and I sat down one night and tried to hammer it out, he said sometimes he thinks it’s just a really good sensory perception - an extreme ability to read body language, electrical impulses, and that kind of thing. It’s no good across distances.”

“Oh. That’s... good. I don’t want James knowing how that felt.”

Castle stared at her.

She shrugged, biting her bottom lip, leaning back against the headboard. “Any of it, really.”

He lifted a hand and rubbed it down his face, shaking his head. “Right.”

“Or... you know. When you touch me.”

His head jerked up, mouth open.

She felt her grin before she could stop it. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t think James should be sensing what Mommy and Daddy are getting up to.”

Castle cracked, laughing as he stared at her. He shook his head and shifted on the bed, crawled up to sit right beside her. She liked the weight of his shoulder against hers, liked even more his hand falling to her thigh and caressing, almost idly, as if he wasn’t paying attention.

Oh, but he was. She knew he was. “I can - sense you I think,” she said then. “Not like Colin, or James can, no. But...”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “We have something.”

She let out a shaky breath and tilted her head down to his shoulder. “Yeah.”

“I feel you too,” he murmured. His fingertips dragged up her leg to tease around her hip, down to the spread open thighs, flirting very close to her groin. “Feel a lot with you.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek and laid her hand over his, stilling him. “Finish telling me.”

He let out a slow breath. “Yeah. Sorry. Distracting.”

“You certainly are.”

He huffed. “Meant you.”

“Mutual then. Finish your story, Castle.”

“So here we are - the four of us - growing up under his careful program of elixir, training, and debriefs. A whole medical team on our asses every second. I went into the Service, CIA, but Alex... he washed out. No one ever told me why. He went to med school, did internships in three different fields, settled on neuro. I’m sure for the elixir. Lots of brain issues.”

“Really. Brain issues.”

He grunted. “Well, yeah. Colin and I are the ones who - well, Colin, really. Colin has been the one digging up the dirt on him. There were a bunch of top secret military programs in the 50s and 60s; they got closed down when the government outlawed experimenting on human beings. Then I guess he had us, focused on us, because he had four minors he could do whatever the hell he wanted to.”

“Did he have other programs? Because he said - there was Coonan who - who killed my mom.”

Castle’s hand flipped under hers, took her fingers in a squeezing grip. “Yeah. He was trying to create an instant super soldier. With the early experiments, he had to introduce the elixir slowly, because it’s toxic to the system. With us, he had our whole lives and his own DNA in us to speed it along.”

“What do you mean by that? Why does having his DNA mean anything?”

“He injected himself with this shit early on,” Castle muttered. His thumb stroked in the cup of her palm. “It altered him on a chromosomal level. Just like it did us, my brothers and I. Start with altered DNA and the elixir is easier on the body.”

“But he gave me the elixir. He gave it to me all - all at once.”

“Yes,” Castle said. He gripped her fingers. “Yes, he did. To alter your - eggs. For... for the boys.”

She let out a slow breath, tilting her head back against the padded headboard. “Right. And he was going to do it again. He - got me pregnant again. And then it was - it was killing me. So I killed them.”

Castle shifted beside her, to move away, maybe, but instead he slid his arm around her shoulders and hugged her into him. “The elixir would have - over time - yes. The stress on your body would have... but Kate it was more than that. I read your file, love. It was more than just those boys.”

She shivered. “What else did he do to me?”

“I meant - meant there were more... God. Kate. The files say you had one - one live birth of twins, and three miscarriages. And then this last-”

Kate jerked out from under his arm, scrambling hard off the bed before she even knew what she was doing. She stood swaying beside the mattress, her heart thundering, thick and tight, somewhere in her throat.

“What are you talking about?” she croaked. Her hands were shaking; she pressed them into her stomach. “What are you saying?”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His head hung. He wasn’t looking at her. “I’m sorry, but the medical files said-”

“There were four. No, no, God, that’s eight. Eight ba-babies - oh, God, oh, God, I’m gonna be sick.” Kate spun around and vaulted herself towards the bathroom, shoving past the pretty modern sink and cracking her knees on the tile. She gripped the bowl and vomited, violence raging through her insides.

When it was done, it wasn’t done. Three miscarriages and the fourth she scraped out herself, and now her guts came up again, and again, until she was sobbing with every retch.

\-----

Castle rubbed his hand down his face, giving her whatever privacy was left, feeling sick himself. When he thought there was a lull in the - activity - he got up off the bed and headed into the bathroom.

Kate was slumped against the wall, but when she saw him, she scrambled to her feet. Her face was streaked with tears. “Castle. God, don’t-”

He stopped just inside the bathroom, and she scraped both hands through her hair, flinched and made a sour face. 

It was in her hair.

God.

He should’ve come in after her.

Kate bit her lip; he could see her struggling not to cry, but it was hopeless. “Fuck,” she said quietly. 

If it had been loud, if it hadn’t been such a soft curse, he might not have felt like absolute shit. But as it was, resigned and bleak, it tore at his guts, shredded him.

Kate turned and ripped her oversized t-shirt off over her head, dropped it to the tile. She slammed a hand against the button for the shower and the water roared on. She was stripping off her leggings before he could reach her, and stepping into the shower just as he cleared the sinks.

White cotton panties and the pink sports bra were shoved back out of the door and fell to the floor, sopping wet.

Castle scowled and gathered the pile of her clothes, turned around and flushed the toilet, closing the lid. He tossed the clothes towards his bedroom, heard the wet slop of it hitting the wood floors, but he didn’t care. He sank down to the lid of the toilet and buried his head in his hands, waiting to see if the water would heat or if she was going to freeze herself out.

It steamed up fast. Too fast. Steam rolled through the bathroom and fogged the glass, the mirrors. Castle lifted his head, already uncomfortable with the humidity - and if he was uncomfortable, he didn’t know how she could possibly stand it.

Punishing herself. Scalding.

Castle jumped to his feet and opened the shower door, a billowing cloud of heat falling over him. He reached in and slapped his hand along the wall until he felt the lever to adjust the temperature, and he twisted it fast.

Kate was turned away from him, her arms up and the water beating at her back - her skin red and angry. But the shower shifted fast from too hot to icy rivers, and she shouted as it hit her, skittering away from him, into the corner.

A wounded thing.

Castle stepped all the way into the shower, still in his pants and t-shirt, but he could block the spray from her while he tried to adjust it. Kate mewled against the tile and his heart fell, a terrible and impotent rage building in his guts at the sound of her grief.

He found a better temperature, enough heat to warm his skin, and he stepped into her back and wrapped his arm around her waist. Kate stiffened, her elbow snapped backwards and caught his ribs but he barely felt it. He pulled her against his chest, dragging her out of the corner and under the spray with him.

Kate sobbed.

She was bowed nearly in half with it. He snaked his other arm around her upper shoulders, around her collarbones so he could brace her, both arms around her tightly. He tucked his chin down against his chest and pressed his cheek against the side of her face, pressing hard enough that she could feel it.

Just like she did to the boys. 

He didn’t speak; there weren’t words to fix this. He wasn’t sure anything at all could fix what had been done to her.

\-----

When the tears were mixed with shower spray, and her body seemed incapable of holding her up any longer, Castle slowly bent his knees and lowered them both to the tile floor. He held her against him, her side pressed into his chest and her knees curled up, as she shuddered through the last of it.

No, it would never be the last of it.

He left the water on, masking the sounds of her breakdown, and he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. He wished so badly that he hadn’t said a word. She might not ever have understood his father’s cryptic notes, might never have wanted to take the time to decipher the medical jargon and shorthand. She might have been better off not knowing.

Ignorance was bliss.

But he’d been ignorant too long, and while it had made his life easier, pretending nothing was wrong, she’d been stuck in a facility - violated repeatedly. So, no. No. Ignorance wasn’t bliss.

The truth was a double-edged sword, but at least there were no secrets between them. At least he wasn’t withholding vital knowledge from her.

Like his father.

Castle curled his arm up around her shoulders and palmed the side of her head, cradling her against his chest. Her hair was in thick, wet ropes along his wrist and down forearm; her breathing was stuttered and harsh. He could feel where her nose touched his adam’s apple, a strangely cold kiss.

He tilted his cheek down to the top of her head and closed his eyes, hurting everywhere.

She was naked and he was fully clothed, and he wished it were anything else. He wished they were any other people; he wished he had never found her there.

It wished away his sons’ existences. But that too. Let them be gone, if only Kate had never been taken from that alley. He would never have met her; he would have gone on incomplete and hollow, haunting the world in whatever life, whatever version of the universe that saw Kate Beckett happy, unmarred.

He wanted that. He wanted that life, and not this one. For her.

Kate pushed off against his chest, struggling out of the cocoon of his embrace. She didn’t look at him but he caught a glimpse of her haggard face, the terrible and blank darkness in her eyes, and he scrambled up to his feet after her.

She stepped out of the shower, slapped her hand against the button to turn it off. The water ceased abruptly and a chill crawled down his back. She kept going, dripping water to the floor, still soaking wet, and she walked right out of his bathroom.

Castle sucked in a ragged breath and followed, peeling off his wet shirt and leaving it on the floor, grabbing all the towels as he went. He found her in the bed, her knees curled up, making her as small a target as possible, her wet hair soaking the pillow under her head.

Her eyes were open, but saw nothing. 

She was gone.

Castle let her stay that way - shut down - because she had coped for three years doing just that, drifting off, checking out. Couldn’t change defense mechanisms overnight.

He draped one of the towels over her body and briskly rubbed her down, arm and thigh, her back, where he could reach that wasn’t invasive. He was still wet, so he left her there and went back to the bathroom, stripped off his combat pants standing before the mirror where he knew she could still see him. 

Even if she wasn’t registering what she saw, at least she would know where he was. That he wasn’t leaving. That he wouldn’t hurt her either.

He piled all of their clothes up and shoved everything into the hamper in his closet, pulled down clean t-shirts and boxers. He remembered her own new clothes still in their bags, and he rifled through one until he found the silky, beautiful panties.

He hesitated, closing his fist around a purple pair. He didn’t know. Would it be easier on her to just not think about any of it? What she’d done today, how she had been so long without, the things taken from her-

Maybe. Maybe, but she had seemed to like purple, drawn to it, something extra in her face when she’d tried on that purple top, when she’d fingered the material of the bra. So he was doing it. One of his t-shirts and these pretty purple underwear and he was going to offer them up. All he had.

Fuck. All he had was a scrap of silk and some worn out black t-shirt. 

And his body, wrapped around hers, holding her together until she could come back and be okay in her own skin after that. After - all of that. 

Castle put on a pair of clean jeans, his own shirt, and he came back to the bed, still sick in his guts, not sure he’d ever feel clean or right again. He knelt down at her side and laid the clothing up near her head on the pillow. He dragged the other towel back to her hair and made an awkward job of wrapping it up where it wouldn’t soak the sheets.

“Clothes if you want them,” he murmured, hands going still on top of the mattress. 

It didn’t seem enough. He was just going to - what? Turn his back and wait? He didn’t think she was capable of moving right now, so far sunk.

“Will you help me?” he said, but it wasn’t a question really. He took the folded up panties and skimmed his hand down her calf to her foot, slid them on. 

Seemed it was all he’d needed to do. She roused and batted away his hands, sat up so that the towels fell from around her, her hair spilling out around her shoulders in wet tendrils. She got her own feet in the underwear and pulled them up and over her knees and then lifted her hips and they were on before he’d seen hardly anything.

Her breasts were still bare, and he saw how full they were - waiting, that had been their agreement, to wait for the boys to wake - and yet how ripe and lush and - and painful, probably, that was for her.

He swallowed and she pulled the shirt on over her head and sat there with her knees up, her arms circling her drawn up legs, her eyes closed. But she was back.

She was present.

He sat down gingerly on the mattress, head bowed, waiting for whatever happened next.

She moved first, getting out of bed. “I need to brush my teeth.”

He lifted his head and watched her move back to the bathroom, the jerky movements of her arms and the lack of grace in her walk. Back, maybe, but not quite able to hold it together.

He listened to the sounds of her in the bathroom, waiting with his elbows caught on his thighs and his shoulders hunched. He closed his eyes to hear every single thing, to hope for strength for her, and so it shocked him when her fingers touched the top of his head.

He snapped upright and she swayed there, not quite looking at him.

“Better?” he asked. Stupid, fucking stupid question. No, it wasn’t better. She had been-

“Um.” Her eyes cast desperately around the room. “No. But. I - need to - I want to wake up the boys and nurse them. I want to - do that. I want...”

“Okay,” he said quickly, when it looked like she might break apart again. He jumped up and hugged her hard, just - it just came over him - and she stiffened but one of her hands gripped his shirt. “Make yourself comfortable and I’ll carry them down to you. Okay?”

She nodded against him and detached herself, and it was the hardest thing he’d ever done to let her go. Let her walk out of his embrace and sink to the mattress in a kind of daze and curl up there, her head tilted back against the headboard, that blankness in her eyes.

But the boys would help, wouldn’t they? The boys were here and she had saved them, and their presence in her arms - that could heal. He’d seen her come alive for them.

Castle ran up the stairs and jumped the gate, his feet thundering as he headed for the boys’ bed. One of the boys made a noise in his sleep, like he might be waking, but Castle barely cared at all. He snagged the first one he came to - Wyatt - cupped the boy’s head while he braced his neck, and he came in a rush back down the stairs.

When he got to the bed, Kate lifted her head, looking startled to see him, and Castle held out Wyatt as if in offering.

It was in offering. It was all he had, everything he could think to do. “Here,” he said quietly. “I’ll leave him right here beside you and go back for James. Kate. Hey, you with me?”

“Yeah,” she said, toneless, but her eyes tracked Wyatt as Castle lowered him to the bed. She touched the side of the boy’s face and trailed her fingers around his forehead and down his cheek, and Wyatt snuffled and rolled into her hip, cuddling.

Castle’s heart eased and he dashed for the stairs again, taking them by twos. Over the gate again, running up to the bed, and James was groggily awake, pushed up on his hands and staring dumbly at the empty space beside him.  
Castle reached in and felt James start violently, shocked out of whatever that had been.

Colin used to do this.

He had forgotten that until now. When Colin had been little, Castle would come back to the family room after a test or endurance trial and pick up Colin and the boy would shudder just like that.

“Were you looking for us?” Castle murmured into the top of James’s head. He went more slowly as he descended this time, but his own heart was thundering. “Were you searching for us?” Inside his own head.

He wondered now. He wished he’d asked his brother a thousand more questions.

When he got back to the bed, Kate was half-curled over Wyatt, snuggled down next to him, her cheek to the top of his head.

“Hey, this one is awake,” Castle whispered, crawling into the bed beside them. Moving carefully. “James was awake, if you want to start with him.”

Kate nodded, and Castle shifted James to one arm, opened his other to her in invitation. She crawled up into his lap, compact and tight - though maybe that was to avoid hitting Wyatt who slept in the middle of the mattress, his mouth open, cheeks flushed.

Castle lifted James away from them, enough for Kate to get settled, and she leaned forward and wriggled out of the t-shirt like a mermaid cutting through the water. Like a well-practiced move, easy.

But Castle held James and she sank back against his chest and waited on him to bring the boy to her breast. Castle wrapped his free arm a little tighter around her than necessary, and he fit James up against her - but it was Kate who guided the little mouth to her nipple and Kate who framed her own arms around his.

When James latched on and began to nurse, even Castle could feel it. He let out a breath even as Kate sighed and sank back into him.

Castle pressed her back, deeper in his arms, and touched his chin to her neck, found the outline of her ear to kiss. He felt her swallow hard and then begin to tremble, like it was finally sinking in, everything.

He put his mouth to her jaw and hugged her against him with the weight of their own son.

She was shivering. One of her hands came over his at the boy.

He buried his face in her wet hair. “I love you, Kate. I love you. I know you can’t imagine it. I know it’s fast and it’s hard to believe. But you’re my family. This is my family, and I am going to fight with every damn breath-” He choked on his words and gripped her harder. “I love you. Just know that I love you.”

He shouldn’t say it. He shouldn’t keep fucking saying it. But it kept rushing out of him when he even began to think about everything else.

Like loving her would - at all - fix this.

\-----


	21. Chapter 21

By the time James fell asleep in her arms - their arms - Kate was settled again. She probed the feeling mentally, testing its strength and flexibility, and if she wasn’t confident, she was at least ready.

Castle was a strength behind her, circling her with every part of him, his chest pressed to her spine. They had found a rhythm even to their breathing, synced so that when his chest expanded, hers collapsed, and when she took a deep breath, he was exhaling, giving each other space.

It was strange, and it was reassuring, and it was easy to believe that this was love. He kept insisting, and she kept allowing this - whatever it was - and so for now, for now, it was whatever it had to be.

With Castle partnering her in this, truly being these boys’ father, she found herself able and willing to listen. To know. She had to know the truth of what had happened to her.

Still - she took her time. She stroked her fingers over James’s forehead, the skin so soft and smooth, the warmth of his sleep as he curled at her breast. He’d fallen asleep midway through feeding, but it was probably enough for now. She didn’t mind being woken up in the middle of the night to nurse again, though she had a feeling the boys were weaning faster than she was ready to give them up.

Wyatt was still sleeping in the middle of the mattress, his body cuddled up to Castle’s thigh. He was the one that looked like his father, light brown hair and round face, and even though both boys were small, thinner than the fat babies on commercials, it was obvious now how distinctive their differences were.

James was thin-boned as well as narrow-faced, and his dark lashes were thick and long. His hair was thicker than Wyatt’s wispy brown, but it curled around his ears and down at his neck. Soft.

Beautiful boys, in their own ways. And asleep like this, wanting to be close to them, soft and sweet, it brought home just how much had been lost.

Kate caressed the side of James’s face before laying her hand on his belly. Feeling him breathe. “Ten,” she murmured. “Ten boys. Right? Five sets of twins.”

Castle’s sigh skirted her jaw, and she felt his mouth touch the top of her shoulder in a kiss. His cheek tilted to rest against her temple and she closed her eyes a moment, feeling him there.

“Yes,” he said. “Twins each time.”

“When,” she said, struggling to clear her throat.

“The boys were two months the first time. Nineteen days was all - all it lasted”

Kate frowned fiercely, trying to remember when that was. Two months. Eight weeks old. There had been trouble after the boys were born; that’s what she’d thought. That there had been trouble, or something hadn’t gone right, and they’d had to fix her. 

They weren’t fixing her.

“He tagged each one with a genetic marker,” Castle said quietly. “That first miscarriage wasn’t - my genetic material.”

Kate froze. “What?” she hissed.

“Ah. There are - genetic similarities to - to the genetic map he used for James and Wyatt - which is mine. They’re mine. I’ve seen my map before, it’s part of the whole - so I know for a fact they’re mine. But after that-”

“Not yours?” she got out. Her hand trembled lying on James’s belly. She blinked and realized her eyes were burning. “But - similar - um - not... were they - his?”

“No,” Castle said immediately, cupping the side of her face, drawing her cheek hard into his. She lifted her hand and curled her fingers around his bicep, hanging on to him. “No, Kate, not Black. One of my brother’s. I don’t - know who. I don’t know yet.”

“Colin,” she croaked, closing her eyes.

“I - maybe,” he whispered.

She was shivering. Why was it worse that they weren’t Castle’s? That these deaths were hers alone. “Don’t tell him.”

“Kate.”

“Don’t tell him,” she insisted. “Don’t make it - harder on everyone. Just. It’s just us. We’re the only ones affected.”

Castle’s fingers trailed down her throat, curled over her heart for a moment before he withdrew his hand. She didn’t know if he’d-

“Okay. But - if he figures it out, I won’t lie to him.”

“Would Alex know?” she whispered.

“He would - probably be the one to figure it out. But he and Colin aren’t close. I don’t - really know about Alex. I wish I could say I did, and I trust him, but there are limits to it.”

Kate nodded, dropping her hand from his bicep to curl along his forearm. “What about the others? Were they - unknown?”

“First and second miscarriage were the same, whichever of my brother’s... maybe Colin. You could be right. Our father always did say that Colin and I were the most stable. Makes sense that he’d use - use Colin’s...”

Four boys had been Colin’s. 

Kate shivered, and Castle’s arm tightened around her, practically on top of James in his other arm. She let herself push back against him, sitting in his lap, his legs crossed under her ass, and James shifted against her breast.

God, was she just lucky that James and Wyatt had survived? That Castle’s boys had lived? What the hell was luck when she’d seen her mother murdered in front of her, been caged for three years-

Kate lifted her hand and pressed it into her eyes, taking slow breaths. “And then,” she said quickly. “There were others-”

“It’s a different marker,” he whispered. “A brother, again, but - I have no idea who. I really don’t.”

“When,” she insisted. “When did-”

“The second miscarriage was when James and Wyatt were six months old - it was ten weeks. The third time, the boys were a year. That was barely - two weeks and three days.”

Kate turned into Castle, as much of her body as she could, twining her arm around his neck even as he had to move quickly to keep James from being disturbed. But Castle hugged her back, settling James beside his brother, and Kate pulled her knees in and crawled into Castle’s lap.

He embraced her, felt like with all his strength, and she buried her face in his neck, her arms tightening around him. 

“That’s all of it,” he husked in her hair. 

She felt his voice down in her bones; it seemed like she would always be able to hear him.

“That’s all there is, Kate, honey. That’s - the worst of it, baby.”

She shivered and shook her head. 

“What?” he whispered, combing his fingers in her hair. “What else can possibly-”

“I killed them. The last ones,” she choked out. Kate bit her bottom lip and lifted her head, her hands braced on his shoulders. “They were yours. They would have lived and-”

He caught her face in his hands, his eyes burning into hers as he stared her down. “No. You didn’t kill anything. You nearly killed yourself, but you did what had to be done to save your lives. Not just your own, but those boys too. They’re alive. They’re what matters.”

She blinked and Castle’s fingers caught the tears that slipped from her eyes. She was so damn tired of tears, of crying, of the grief of it.

“They would have lived,” she whispered.

“No, Kate. Stop. You don’t know that. After three miscarriages, honey, they might not have.”

But she knew. She knew because she had known. She had felt those babies, she had known they were inside her, where she hadn’t known with the others. She still couldn’t even pinpoint the second and third miscarriages - everything had been so hectic anyway, and breastfeeding had run her life.

Kate let out a breath and leaned into Castle, letting him take her whole body weight. His arms came around her again, that easy and wonderful embrace, forgiving, but she knew.

She knew.

They would have lived. 

\-----

When Kate fell asleep in his lap, Castle laid her down with him in the bed, putting his back to the boys so that they wouldn’t be disturbed.

James must not have been entirely asleep, because even as Castle adjusted Kate on the mattress, he felt the boy crawl up to the pillow and settle down there instead. It was an odd sensation, having James up higher, because the boy had curled around his shoulder and those little fingers touched his neck.

He couldn’t imagine having to face doing this all over again. If Kate hadn’t - done what she had done - if Castle had found her in her room still four weeks pregnant and-

Fuck.

It made him want to weep. All of it. There was no grief for the unborn; none of that came into it. It was Kate. Kate being violated over and over and not even knowing, God, she was so young. Her face was tranquil in sleep, but she was so heartbreakingly young, so raw and terrorized and yet so damn strong. She just didn’t break.

No matter how far she was bent, she didn’t break.

Colin had broken. Castle himself had broken, long ago, and the pieces put back together had been done by his father’s hand. But John Black hadn’t managed to win Kate.

And now she was free. And yet still so fettered. He didn’t know how she was supposed to come back from all of that. What life was there after John Black? Even Castle had never figured that out for himself.

Those little fingers scratched at his neck.

Castle lifted his arm from Kate and half-turned, saw James was awake and watching him. Sad little face. With Kate’s body tangled in his, Castle had to move slowly, shifting to his back and making space on the mattress to slide his arm under James.

The boy snuffled and wormed down against Castle’s side, his fists clinging to Castle’s shirt. Kate was still bare, the t-shirt somewhere at the foot of the bed, but James didn’t lunge for her. He stayed with Castle, those soft and unhappy noises.

These two were more than-

He was glad she had done that. He wasn’t sure he’d be a good enough man for her if she had come to him pregnant and still with these two and-

Even the thought of these boys’ future scared the shit out of him. He had no parental influences; he was going on instinct and gut feeling and maybe that had worked so far but those guts and instincts had been created by a fucking monster.

James grunted against his chest and squirmed up under his chin, one little baby arm coming around Castle’s neck and fingers playing with his hair.

Castle embraced him with one arm, tilted his head to look at Kate lying on his other arm. Asleep, and deeply so, probably for the night.

What his father had done to her was unforgivable, and what she’d done to survive all that would find no judgement from him. None. She was strong and beautiful and she had loved his sons even though their very existence was a horrific violation.

He loved her; it burned clearer than the rest of this. Burned the past clean out of him. He didn’t have to worry about his parenting skills or even being a good enough man for them because he loved Kate.

Maybe he had been afraid he wasn’t capable of love, but this thing with her, this connection and force and feeling, it was so steady it silenced everything else. 

James sighed against his neck and his little body relaxed.

Castle palmed the back of the boy’s head, realizing now what he’d done, what James had been doing too. “Sorry,” he murmured. “It’s a big ocean, kiddo. Stick close to me; I can be steady for you. I promise.”

It was love. It wasn’t emotionlessness, wasn’t turning himself off, shutting down so that he gave out no feedback. It was love. That was what these boys responded to, what allowed James to relax enough to sleep, what Kate found when she turned and crawled into his arms for comfort. Love. It was so simple, really, and yet two weeks ago, he’d have said it was beyond him.

It wasn’t. She wasn’t. This life with them wasn’t either.

He could do this.

\-----

Kate woke to the white ceiling and dead air of the room.

The Room. It should have caps. 

Had she forgotten some scheduled exam? They had put her under again. But they didn’t always tell her. She might have been shut down when they said something, and then the needle had jabbed into her arm.

The pump was here. Right beside the bed. Had she gone to recovery? She had missed that, maybe too out of it. Maybe it was that woman again, the one who hated her; she would have pushed Kate straight to The Room and bypassed recovery entirely.

That wasn’t good. If she managed the wire, she couldn’t have that bitch rolling her here instead of recovery. Recovery was where Kate had hidden the knife.

The breast pump with its suction cup - like a torture device. But oddly, she wasn’t full. She didn’t ache at all. Maybe they’d given her meds this time; she felt strange enough. She felt - disconnected.

She felt wrong.

She was having trouble keeping her eyes open. She was in her room, she was restrained to the cot, as usual-

No. She wasn’t. Was she restrained? She couldn’t feel-

A cry pierced the dead air, and Kate jerked upright.

Awake. She was awake. She was awake. Her heart thundered. Her head pounded with pain. Screaming. Scream-

The boys.

Kate was alone in Castle’s bed, the boys were gone, but she could hear one of them - both of them - sobbing from upstairs. She was falling out of the bed before she knew her body was moving, and then she crawled to her feet and stood, swaying, her heart galloping madly.

She had to use the wall to guide her up the stairs, listing hard into the stone, still bewildered by her dream. She’d woken up to a dream, and that had never happened before, and the whole thing had left a strange, sick taste in her mouth.

One boy was screaming with every breath he took, the other crying; she couldn’t tell the difference. She didn’t know their cries. Her head was killing her, like an ice pick through her temples. She nearly fell over the baby gate, but her entrance caught the boys’ attention.

There was a heartbeat of absolute silence.

And then sobbing for her, sobbing her name, and she came around the gate awkwardly and smacked her knee into the wall before she found them both standing up in the bed, gripping the half-rail that was meant only to keep them from falling out of bed at night.

They could have gotten out, but they hadn’t.

“Okay,” she croaked, her voice raw with dreams. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” She drew forward quickly, knelt at the open end of the bed, opening her arms to them. James lurched for her first, the adventurous one, and she wrapped him up.

He hadn’t been the one screaming out his fear into the whole house. He was just sobbing into her neck. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she husked, barely able to get the words out. She pinned her gaze on Wyatt, his red face and twisted mouth, opening one of her arms to him, snagging his shirt with her fingers. “Come here. Please. I can’t pick you up; you have to come to me, baby. Come-”

“Mama!” Wyatt sobbed and gulped and stuttered into her, howling loud and shuddering with every choked breath. She crawled onto the mattress with them and the boys climbed into her lap, fists gripping her shirt (her shirt! Castle must have clothed her before he’d left).

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re both just fine. Bad dream, honey.”

“Mama, mama, mama,” Wyatt choked out, tears still streaming down his face. The desperation seemed to have loosened its hold on him; the wild rigidity of his body had eased.

She wedged her back into the corner and drew them into her chest, both boys still standing on her thighs and trying to climb into her arms. She couldn’t comfort them both; one was always going to be jostling the other.

“Castle!” she called out. She didn’t know where he was, but James would go to him. James could be comforted. “Castle.”

Wyatt sobbed harder, and Kate lowered her voice and pressed her kiss to his tear-streaked cheeks. 

“Okay, okay,” she hushed, rocking them slowly back and forth. “You’re okay. This is getting a little dramatic now, baby. You’re scaring your brother. Hush, everything is fine.”

“Muh-muh-muh-” Wyatt rubbed his face against her, still shuddering with his tears. “Mama. Mama.”

“I’m here. I’ve got you. I just can’t pick you up,” she gritted out. Damn it. “It’s okay, Wyatt. You’re okay.” She kissed his cheeks and his ears, the hot and sweaty flush of his face. James mewled and pushed his body into her, seeking her attention, and she gave him a kiss too, cupped the back of his head.

“Castle?” she yelled again. 

“Mama. Mama-”

“Okay,” she insisted, ducking a kiss down to Wyatt’s head. “I’m here.” Her arms were shaking though; just a little exertion and she was exhausted. The windows were dark; she had no idea what time it was or where Castle had gone.

“Castle-”

“What’s going on?” 

She lifted her head and saw him appearing on the stairs, running up, vaulting the gate to get to them.

“Bad dream, something,” she said. “Take-”

But he reached in for Wyatt. 

She was too shocked to grab him back, and Castle cuddled the boy against his chest with those broad, wide hands. James whimpered and squirmed closer, and she wrapped her arms around him reflexively, staring up at Wyatt in Castle’s arms.

Castle had lowered his mouth to the boy’s ear, was apparently whispering to him, but he squatted down beside them and sank to the mattress.

Kate scooted over to give him room in the narrow space between the railing and the foot of the bed, even as James tried to climb her ribs into her arms. She hugged him, cupped the side of his face even as she kept her eyes on Wyatt.

“Mama,” Wyatt mumbled. His choked screams had woken her, but he had still been sobbing in her arms. Now with Castle, he was letting out that juddering sigh as he regained control again, though the tears still brimmed over his eyes and his nose was running. Castle had laid his hand over Wyatt’s head and brought him against his shoulder, and the boy’s mouth was open as he sucked in a quivering breaths.

Kate sighed and angled her body into Castle’s, using the side of his arm to support James’s back, able to squeeze him harder this way. James’s tears were drying now, his fingers in her hair and curling, playing, around and around so that her eyelids were heavy.

“Where did you go?” she mumbled. Aghast that she’d even asked, but too exhausted to take it back - take herself back from this comfortable, comforting position she’d placed herself in.

Right at his side.

“I was in the kitchen,” Castle said softly. His voice was warm and golden, honey. “Making some dinner in case you woke hungry. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you. I had the CIA scanner on.”

CIA scanner. No idea. “Time’s it?”

“Around nine or so,” he said. His body shifted and she stiffened, thinking he wasn’t comfortable here, but instead he leaned into her and kissed her forehead.

His lips were warm; the kiss made her eyes close.

“Nine,” she echoed. “It’s nine. He had a nightmare, I think.”

“He woke you?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding against him. Already Wyatt’s crying had settled into one or two tear-filled sighs and the occasional shuddering of his body. James, pressed between her and Castle, had fistfuls of her hair and his little fingers kept flicking out to play at her neck.

It was actually soothing to her too.

“You’re okay now, Wyatt. Aren’t you? Yeah, dreams can be scary sometimes. And then waking up alone.”

“He scared James,” Kate told him, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “James was crying too.”

“I can see the tears on his face,” Castle whispered. 

She saw him curl his fingers around Wyatt’s ear, brushing his lips at the top of Wyatt’s head. Tender. So tender it broke her heart.

“What’s wrong, Wyatt, huh? What kind of dream did you have?”

Something struck her just then and she jerked upright, looking at Castle. “Where’s Colin?”

Castle frowned. “I don’t know. He - has to leave sometimes.”

She was afraid-

“No,” Castle said, shaking his head. “If James had woken up like that, then maybe. James was afraid because when you watch someone you love hurting so badly they can’t control it - it scares you. That’s all, Kate.”

She nodded, trying to still her suddenly frantic heart. Colin was an adult. He was very capable. And Castle hadn’t left; he was right here. He’d been making dinner, that was all.

Castle squirmed next to her and managed to get his arm out from between them; he wrapped it around her back and shoulders, tugged her into him.

“Just a bad dream, waking up in a strange place. Both boys are completely off-schedule, out of their routines. I’m sure that’s all it was. It just - takes a while to believe you’re safe. I know that feeling. Don’t you?”

She nodded against him. She still felt it. 

Safe.

James flicked his fingers against her neck and swirled in her hair.

Safe. She could be almost convinced of it.

\-----

Castle would have been content to stay here forever - or well, as long as Kate needed him to settle one of the boys - but after a few moments, Kate shook her head.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

“Out?”

“Out of the room, this narrow little bed. Out of the bed. I’m done with beds. You made dinner?”

Castle blinked. “Sort of. Almost.”

“Well, then let’s go downstairs and hang out in the kitchen and just - do something differently. Eat whatever you’ve got.”

“I can finish. Just spaghetti,” he said, feeling his throat close up.

She wanted to eat his dinner.

“Spaghetti?” she asked, her eyebrows lifting. “Really?”

He nodded, curling his arm tighter around Wyatt as the boy snuffled against him. “Yeah. Why?”

“I - love spaghetti. I haven’t had... yeah.”

He frowned, swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Yeah, well - the sauce is simmering, but the noodles might be cooked right out of the-”

“Then what are we sitting around here for?” she said, pushing on his shoulder. “Go, go, go.”

He laughed and shifted forward. “Fine, I’m going. We’re going. All of us?”

“Yeah. I think they could use a change of scenery. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be left alone after a nightmare either.”

“No, me either,” he murmured. Though he wasn’t sure he’d ever had a nightmare before, and if he had, it’d been as a kid, with his brothers around him in the family room. So. “Let’s go, then. I guess I could carry them both-”

“No, I bet James will walk. He might like the stairs. How about it, baby? Want to climb down the stairs?”

“Mama.”

Castle’s heart flipped over as Kate beamed back at James for that, but he got to his feet with Wyatt in his arms, watching Kate interact with James. The boy had his thumb in his mouth and his other hand was curled in Kate’s hair, and he didn’t seem to want to get down.

“Where’s his rag doll?” Castle said, shifting Wyatt. The boy in his arms leaned out and reached for Kate, but Kate was hunting in the bed for the boys’ sleep toys. Stuffed animals. Whatever.

“Here it is. And here’s the bunny,” she said, holding out the rabbit to Wyatt. Castle leaned in so that Wyatt could take it and the boy snuggled it close, whimpering a little as if to remind them all that he’d been sad.

“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Castle murmured, brushing a kiss to the top of his head. “You’re fine. I’ll let you play with spaghetti noodles.”

Kate was teasing James with the rag doll, but the boy looked determined not to leave her lap. Castle reached down and took James by the hand, tugging to help nudge him clear.

“I could carry him down-”

“No,” Castle said firmly. “You will not.”

“Castle. Just one-”

“We have eight weeks,” he said. “And fuck if I’m gonna let you carry the kid downstairs and start the damn countdown all over again.”

Kate blinked up at him, and then she laughed, flushing pink as she pushed James off her lap. “Eight weeks. Right. Well, James, Daddy wants to fuck sooner rather than later, so get up and get moving.”

Castle grunted - that had sounded pretty crude, and damn hot - but James was scowling up at him like he knew it was all Castle’s fault. “Come on, Jay. You’re fine. We’ll get downstairs and I’ll put you in her lap at the table.”

“See?” Kate murmured, standing up now in the middle of the boys’ mattress. “Daddy’s being so nice.”

“Daddy, huh,” he said, taking her hand as she stepped down to the floor. Wyatt shifted in his arms, the bunny catching his chin, and he tried again to get to Kate.

“Well, you are,” she muttered, leaning in to kiss Wyatt’s cheek. She blew softly in the boy’s ear and he giggled, shrinking back against Castle. “Look at you, came sweeping in here and scooped up Wyatt without a second’s hesitation. Daddy’s a hero.”

He knew she was messing with him but he flushed with pride anyway, feeling it down to his toes how damn much that meant. She thought he was a good dad. She wanted to eat his spaghetti and hang out with him in the kitchen and call him the boys’ father.

James clung to her knees, whining up at them, but he had his rag doll in one hand. Kate took the other and led him away, heading for the stairs, and that seemed to be enough for the boy. He followed without another sound, though Wyatt, in Castle’s arms, grunted in dissatisfaction, leaning out after her.

“Don’t worry, son. We’re going too. Always gonna go after your mom.” He shifted Wyatt to one arm and went quickly towards the gate where Kate was holding it open for James. Castle caught the gate so that Kate could go ahead, and she held James’s hand and waited for him to clear the gate.

But she didn’t have to wait at all. James came down the steps without a hitch, even though the steps were shallow and he had to run between each hop down. Castle was astonished.

That definitely wasn’t something a fourteen-month old could usually do. He didn’t know a damn thing about babies, but he knew that a baby shouldn’t be able to take the stairs at a run.

He was literally jumping down. It wasn’t a two-foot jump, granted; the boy was pushing off with his right and tumbling down, and Kate was holding his hand, but still.

Fuck.

“Impressive,” he told her, following along behind.

“Kinda scares the shit out of me,” she laughed. “He’s gonna pitch forward and crack his head on the stone.”

“We’ll have to be careful about the gate,” he added.

“Very careful.” She scowled as James hopped and hopped again, and she glanced back at Castle. “This is your kid.”

He laughed, surprised more than anything. “My kid? He looks just like you, Beckett.”

“This - adeptness - this physicality? That is not me.”

“No?” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her. “I’d say you were damn physical.”

She pressed her lips together but she gave him a hot look for it, and he grinned back, just too pleased to have gotten to her to keep the leer going.

Kate helped James down the last step and into the bedroom and Castle came after her, letting Wyatt down on his feet too.

Wyatt whined and turned back to him, raising both arms and pouting.

“No, you’re right,” Kate said, glancing down at Wyatt. “That’s your face. Your pouting, puppy-dog face. That one’s yours.”

\-----

Kate sat with her knees up in the broad kitchen chair, her bare feet stuck to the wood and her shins pressed against the table. Castle had put James in her lap, and the boy was cuddled up against her chest, his thumb in his mouth and the rag doll in his arm, and he was almost asleep.

Wyatt was whining at Castle’s feet. Head tilted back and begging him for attention, and she was a little bit amused by that. 

Castle stood at the stove trying to get the noodles unstuck from the sides of the boiling pot, and she watched from the kitchen chair with the boy braced against her. Kate curled her fingers in the hair growing over James’s neck, doing to him what he’d been doing to her, and it was nice.

It was really nice. Just sitting in a kitchen, smelling good food on the stove, the warm baby against her chest. The back of the chair was so tall that she had her head leaning against it, easy and relaxed, taking all her weight and the boy too.

Castle was pulling spaghetti noodles from the pot and scooping them into a dish, clumps of them, not quite gourmet, but she hardly cared. He used two fingers and held one out over Wyatt’s head, dangling there, and the boy went up on his toes, using Castle’s jeans to pull himself up.

Castle dropped the noodle on Wyatt’s face, and Kate laughed, surprised by the play Castle kept unexpectedly coming out with. Wyatt cackled too, dropping back to flat feet and then falling to his bottom on the tile, reaching for the wet noodle. He crammed it into his mouth and then came running for her, showing her his prize.

“Yeah, you got some spaghetti,” she said, still chuckling. She poked the end of the noodle into his mouth and lifted her eyes to Castle. “You’re kinda cute, you know.”

“Me?”

She smirked at him and glanced back down at Wyatt, saw him chewing thoughtfully on his noodle, messy and intent. “Is it good? How’s Daddy at cooking?”

“No master chef here,” Castle said. “But I think I saved the noodles.”

“I can smell the sauce,” she told him. “Smells really good. I’m starving.”

“Yeah?” Castle glanced at her and pointed the noodle spoon at her. “Coming right up.” He turned back to the cabinets and pulled out plates, and her stomach flipped over and growled. Castle laughed.

“Did you hear that?” she said, cupping the back of James’s head. Wyatt had crawled under the table again, where he’d left his bunny, and she could just see the curve of his face, the way he chewed on that noodle.

“Your stomach growling?” Castle laughed. “Yeah, babe, I heard that. Pretty loud.”

“You have any bread?”

“Bread?” Castle turned around, the pot of sauce in one hand and ladle in the other. “Um, I’m sure we do. Why?”

She bit her bottom lip and laid her palm against James’s back. “I just meant - like bread for the spaghetti. My dad always made it. French bread, I think, and he’d slice it up and put butter and parmesan cheese and garlic salt over the top and grill it. My mom made the sauce and my dad made the bread and...”

Castle stared at her and then his throat bobbed and she realized she was - making it bad.

“Any bread,” she said quickly. “Doesn’t matter. Spaghetti is amazing.”

“It does matter,” he husked. “I don’t have - garlic or parmesan or any of that. I’m not sure I’ve even got butter. We don’t eat much of that stuff.”

Kate tilted her head down to look at James, avoiding Castle’s bleak face. She smoothed the hair back from James’s forehead and sighed. “It’s not important.”

“We’ll go grocery shopping,” Castle said.

“No.”

“Yes. Groceries. Food is important, good food. And stuff like that - I wouldn’t know about, Kate. Butter and parmesan. I mean, I didn’t even have spices here. That’s just not part of my world.”

“I know,” she said quickly, nodding. She definitely knew.

“What did you have - I mean, what kind of food... shit.”

Kate pressed her lips together and leaned in, softly kissed James’s forehead. “Enough,” she murmured. “I had enough.”

“But no spaghetti. And no - no butter or salt or anything good.”

“No.”

“What then, Kate. What did you eat?”

“Um.” She took a breath and glanced up, saw Castle had both plates in his hands, heading for the kitchen table. She could smell the rich texture of tomato sauce and meatballs and her mouth was watering. “A mix for breakfast. Sludge.”

Castle stopped dead in the middle of the kitchen. “Green.”

She nodded.

“God, that stuff is disgusting. I know exactly-” Castle tossed his head and came quickly towards her, laid the plates on the table before her. “Shit, that’s how we started our days too. Sludge. Good name for it. We called it bile.”

Kate laughed, a little puff of air really, but it was funny. It was funny - that they both had memories of some of the same stuff.

“A lot of eggs, right?” Castle said, going back to a drawer for forks. 

“Yeah. Eggs for lunch, after training. Well, when I had training, at the beginning. And then I’d do some stuff on my own, after - after the boys were born. But still eggs. Every day. Kinda sick to death of eggs.” 

“No kidding. Me too.” Castle gave her a wretched look, wincing and sank down to the chair beside hers.

But her arms were filled with baby boy and she couldn’t reach the plate. “Can you - get him? Maybe lay him down on the couch?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Castle loomed over her once more, and she opened her arms to allow him to take the baby. He had to brace James’s neck with a broad hand, the boy was so sleep-heavy and flimsy with it, and then Castle stood up and carried him off to the living room.

Kate dropped her feet to the floor and leaned in against the kitchen table, inhaling the scent of meatballs. It had been a long time, and while french fries and a milkshake were one thing, spaghetti - a real dinner - was entirely different.

“You look like an urchin,” Castle said suddenly. She felt his hand drop to the top of her head, and then he was leaning in and kissing the corner of her mouth. “A lovely urchin.”

“Not sure that’s really a compliment,” she muttered, elbowing him off.

“Where’s Wyatt?”

Wyatt squawked and Kate laughed, nodding. “Under the table.”

“He hasn’t eaten - or nursed either. Should I give him something?”

“More noodles if he wants,” she shrugged, fingering the fork set at her place. A fork. With sharp tines. “I’ll nurse him before we put them back to bed. I guess.”

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, sitting down beside her now.

She nodded and pulled the plate towards her with two fingers. “Taking my time. Relishing it.”

“You break my heart, kid,” he muttered, taking up his own fork and stabbing into a meatball.

She didn’t mean to. But she wasn’t going to pretend like this was as easy as stabbing a meatball. “How much older are you than me?”

Castle choked and glanced wildly at her; she shrugged and tugged the plate closer.

He cleared his throat and took a sip of water from his glass. “Well. I’m thirty-two. Just turned.”

“Ten years,” she murmured. “You’re thirty-two.”

“You make it sound old.” He gave her a cracked grin but it fell apart. “I feel old.”

“I feel old,” she sighed. And then she gave him a sly look until that bleakness left his face. “But not as old as you.”

“Shut up,” he muttered, but he was chuckling too.

She grinned and pulled the plate in close, picked up her fork. “I think we’re about the same age, all that it matters. And you made me spaghetti, so I couldn’t care less about how old you are. In fact, spaghetti-making puts you right at the top.”

“The top of what?” he grumbled, nudging her elbow with his.

“My list.”

“You have a list.”

“James, Wyatt, you. Colin probably, if I have to.”

His mouth stopped mid-chew and he stared at her. She wondered what she’d said, ducked her head to study her plate of spaghetti.

Her stomach growled again and she stopped relishing, started eating.

Kate moaned with the first bite. She’d intended to play it up a little, tease him, but fuck it was good. It was really fucking good, holy shit, spaghetti.

“Good?”

“So damn good,” she muttered. She had to swallow and it was warm going all the way down.

“No cursing. You’re too young to pick up my bad habits.”

She grunted and elbowed him back, scowling at him. He was grinning at her, and she really wanted to smudge that look right off his face. 

She really wanted to kiss him.

Kate sank back in the chair, stunned by her own impulse, but at the same time, how nice it was to want. Want spaghetti, want Castle, want to have James in her lap. To want and to know she could have it if she just - reached out and took it.

Suddenly little hands were against her bare thighs, a face pressed into her legs. She gasped and laughed, dropping a hand down to where Wyatt had crept up on her. She glanced under the table and saw him pressed against her shins, grinning up at her.

“What?” Castle said, ducking his head to look himself.

“I think someone wants more spaghetti,” she laughed, combing that soft dark-blonde hair back from his face. “Don’t you, baby?”

“Mama!”

“Come here, kid. I’ll get you some noodles. You think you can sit at the table with us?”

Castle was already half-crawling under the table and snagging Wyatt by the back of his onesie, pulling him out.

They had put the boys to bed in their little pants and shirts, not even pajamas, no bath, no dinner. But somehow she felt that they weren’t doing too bad a job with them.

Look at how Wyatt beamed when Castle put him in the chair, and look at how Castle grinned back at him.

She had never seen so many smiles. That was enough for today.

\-----

Watching Kate Beckett eat spaghetti shouldn’t be so hot, but it was. She clearly enjoyed it, more than enjoyed it, and the lick of her tongue around her fingers, her top lip, was amazing. She had this little noise too, something throaty, and it twisted his guts to hear it.

She made that sound when he had her breast in his mouth. He knew that sound. He was imagining that sound the first time he pushed inside her, how it would fill her up, her body arching under him, her thighs clamped around his hips.

Damn.

He was getting hot and bothered sitting at his kitchen table. He was damn glad that Colin had cleared out for a while, even if it did leave them stuck here with only the little car in the garage out front. He wasn’t sure he wanted his brother around making fun of how much Kate Beckett got to him.

At least Wyatt was distracting. He kept wiggling in the chair as he ate his little pile of noodles off the table. He was too short for the chair, but he was up on his knees to reach, and Castle had to keep grabbing him by the shirt to keep him in it.

Wyatt rocked back and forth on his knees and reached out for another noodle, smashed it into his mouth. The bunny was somewhere under the table, but Wyatt seemed to have forgotten about it. He held up another noodle and beamed at Castle, proud of himself, and Castle leaned in and snatched it out of his hand with his mouth.

Wyatt pealed with laughter, rocking back in the chair as Castle ate his noodle, his mirth so loud and vibrant that it filled the whole room. Castle grinned widely and glanced at Kate, and she was grinning too, and he’d done that.

Make the babies laugh. Make Kate happy.

He glanced back to the boy and saw Wyatt tilt his head, as if searching him out. And then Wyatt glanced down at the table, picked out a specific noodle, and then held it out to Castle, beaming.

Castle laughed and opened his mouth, leaned in until Wyatt could reach him. The boy was flushed with pride - or maybe it was that thrilled sense of danger, not knowing what Castle might do - and he carefully angled the noodle into Castle’s mouth.

Castle caught his fingers in his lips and Wyatt barked out a laugh. It was near-delirious sound of almost-fear, but Wyatt seemed to like it, and he snatched his fingers back to his chest while laughing at Castle.

“Careful with those fingers,” Kate chuckled. “Feeding the animals, Wy.”

Wyatt gave a little giggle and went for another noodle, nearly toppling from the chair in his haste. Castle caught him, keeping him balanced, and Wyatt lunged for his mouth, bringing the noodle and smashing it nearly into Castle’s teeth.

Castle grunted and opened his mouth for it, nibbled on Wyatt’s fingers this time. He peeled with laughter, so amused, his laugh so deep that it made Castle grin.

“You better be careful too,” Kate said, leaning in over her plate. “You’ve started something and it’ll never stop.”

“I’m beginning to see that,” Castle muttered, getting a fistful of noodles in the eye. He ducked his head away and grabbed both of Wyatt’s hands in his, and then gobbled at the boy’s fingers until he was laughing so hard that his whole body bowed back.

And then his head smacked into the table and all the laughter was gone.

\-----

Wyatt sobbed.

Kate stood up, but Castle had the boy upright again and was already turning to her. “Sit, Kate, not holding him.” 

She didn’t actually hear him say that - Wyatt was crying so hard - but she sat back down and opened her arms and Castle lowered the boy into her lap. While she cuddled him and kissed his tear-streaked cheeks, Castle ran his fingers through the back of Wyatt’s head.

“Sh-sh, baby,” she whispered at Wyatt’s ear. “You’ll wake your brother.” She rubbed his back and glanced up at Castle to see if he’d found any damage.

She was astonished by the look on his face.

Kate reached out and snagged his wrist, squeezed. “Hey,” she said intently. “It’s not your fault. Castle. Don’t.”

His cheeks flushed and he curled her fingers around her forearm, stroked softly. “It is my fault.”

“Look, he’s fine,” she insisted. She ran her own fingers through Wyatt’s hair, winced when she felt the bump coming up at his skull. “Just a bump. It’s just a little bump, honey. You’re so melodramatic, aren’t you?”

She glanced back to Castle but he had sunk to the tabletop, regret swimming in his eyes. She didn’t want that, now when this was so ridiculous in comparison to the last - this was nothing.

Wyatt pitched forward into her chest and she hugged him, nudging her chin down to the sweaty place at his neck. He wasn’t crying anymore, not real tears, just manufacturing a few for her attention.

She knew he was okay. “Hey, you’re fine, you’re so fine. Was that a mean table? Did that table hurt you?”

Wyatt hiccuped and lifted his head to look at her, something of her words getting through to him. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed first one eyelid and then the other, tasting the faint salt of his tears.

“See? Show Daddy that you’re just fine. He’s worried about you. Look at Daddy, can you give him a hug?”

Wyatt did actually turn in her arms and stare mournfully at Castle. He gave a little whimpering sound and reached out for Castle, and she saw the stunned look cross his face. But he reached in and took Wyatt from her, and the boy cuddled up to him, seeking his father’s attention now too.

Kate stood slowly and leaned a hip against the table, pushing her plate away so that she could stay close to them. She ran her fingers through the boy’s hair, examining the knot that was forming. Castle was nose to nose with Wyatt, both boys looking a little sad and pathetic.

“Come on, guys. It’s not as bad as that. James always had bruises and knots on his head. Wyatt is just surprised; he’s never been-”

Castle’s head jerked up to look at her; Kate caught her lip in her teeth and frowned.

“Wyatt had puzzles, problem solving. He never learned to run down the stairs,” she said finally, shrugging. “At least, that’s what those notes said. Right?”

Castle swallowed hard and nodded. “Right.”

“And you can tell,” she went on, stroking the boy’s neck and down his back. “He’s kind of a baby about it. He likes the attention and wants you to know he’s hurt. James doesn’t do that; he just takes it and keeps going.”

“Wyatt’s like me, huh?”

Kate pressed her lips together but raised an eyebrow at him.

“You think I’m as melodramatic as he is?”

“Um.” She realized she was wriggling a little beside him, like she was caught out. “Okay, well, it’s just - you guys both were so - um - pathetic looking? Forehead to forehead, mournful puppies.”

Castle’s jaw dropped.

She laughed and tried not to, but it was funny. “You looked exactly alike, little miniature Castle. It’s kinda cute.”

“I have my own mini-me?”

She laughed, putting a hand over her mouth to keep it quiet; James was still asleep. Hopefully. She dropped her hand and touched Wyatt’s head, hummed at Castle. “Mini-you?”

“A movie,” he said, shaking his head. “Just...”

“A movie. What’d I miss?” she said, sinking down to sit beside him on the table. She nudged his shoulder with her own to keep him talking. “When was this movie and would I like it?”

“Um, it was - probably ’99? Colin blackmailed me into going because it’s a spy comedy.”

She grinned. “I bet I’d like that. What’s it called?”

“Austin Powers?”

Her breath caught in her lungs. “No, I - I saw that movie,” she whispered.

“This was a sequel. They - um - they have a third one coming out in July.”

“Oh.”

“Mini-me is probably in that one too. This is dumb. This is such a stupid conversation. Why are we-”

“It’s not dumb,” she said, bumping his shoulder. He rocked to one side but he might have given her that one. Wyatt was curled up on his other shoulder and his fingers were tight in Castle’s shirt. “It’s not dumb. It’s stuff I don’t know. As much as this cabin is beautiful and perfect, there is a world out there.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. Maybe I should be-”

“No,” she sighed. “Just - don’t be afraid to tell me about whatever’s going on. In the real world. This is... magic, Castle. It is. But it’s not real. And maybe if you-”

“This is real,” he said harshly. His face was stony as he regarded her, mulish. She’d seen that look on James before, that I’m doing this anyway look. He’d had that look going down the stairs. Not joy, not thrill - stubborn determination.

“This is a castle in the woods, a fairy tale,” she said back, shaking her head. “Eight weeks before this is all just-”

“Eight weeks to heal. To recover from what was done to you - at least - at least physically. And then we can think about what happens after that. Other than being able to touch you and not have to worry that I’m only hurting you more.”

She blinked and dropped her chin, but Castle caught the back of her neck with his hand and gripped her tightly. She lifted her eyes to him and he shook his head.

“Don’t worry about what happens in eight weeks,” he said gruffly. “I’m taking care of you, of all of this. We’ve got the boys. I know you don’t want to hear me keep saying it, so I won’t. But it doesn’t get erased after eight weeks.”

I love you. She swallowed and glanced down at Wyatt; the boy was being very quiet for all that earlier drama.

“Eight weeks is what the doc said at the hospital. Eight weeks until we can touch each other. That’s the only deadline we have, sweetheart.” 

She nodded, automatically, her eyes fixed on Wyatt. This boy who already felt comfortable going to his daddy for consolation, for tears and hurts and bad dreams. Eight weeks was a physical deadline for her body, but if she didn’t make it one for her heart, then she wasn’t sure she’d ever let go of them.

“Look, honey. If you want to hear about what’s been going on in the world, we can do that. We’ve got satellite tv, you can watch it all day while the boys crawl all over their room, all their toys and shit. Those chairs up there are amazing. They even have built-in massage.”

She cracked on a laugh, felt her breath sucking into her lungs. “Sounds - good.”

He was trying to smile at her, and here she was ruining dinner. This wonderful spaghetti he’d made. It was only the first week of - of everything she had left - she didn’t need to keep making it bad.

This could be really good. Just like being in bed with Castle, some things were off limits, sure, but what they could do was still really good.

Kate leaned in and softly kissed his cheek, felt the oil of his skin against her lips. “Thank you,” she murmured. “You’re being very sweet to me, Castle.”

His hand snaked up and caressed the side of her face, such overwhelming tenderness in his eyes that it made her breathless.

“That’s not what it is,” he husked. I just love you.

\-----

Dinner was nearly done and Wyatt was curled up with his rabbit in Castle’s arms. Kate had eaten everything on her plate and half of another serving as well, and she had pulled her feet up into the chair, just watching him finish his own meal.

“I should nurse him,” she murmured softly.

He lifted his head and glanced towards the couch where James was still asleep. He hadn’t woken even during Wyatt’s feelings-hurt head-bump, or the initial application of ice when Wyatt had howled (Castle quickly abandoned the idea of first aid on the kid). But Kate hadn’t spoken barely a word more to him, pulled back inside herself.

Retreating. 

She’d done everything she could to not be present with him at the table, reserved and cut off from him, from Wyatt too, and maybe it was just too much.

It’d been a long damn day - and it’d gone from triumphant to giddy to emotional to abusive rather quickly. A seesaw. She might be ready to just close her eyes and ignore the whole world.

And that most definitely included him and his constant, insistent, annoying I love yous.

“I can work it so that Wyatt is propped up on the arm of the couch while you nurse,” he told her.

Kate jerked her head back to him, her mouth open.

“I mean - I know it’s not comfortable, having me - caging you in - and if we put a few pillows-”

“No.”

He shut his mouth.

Kate twitched and sat up straight, her feet falling to the floor. “I don’t want to - do it alone.”

His heart turned over. “I thought you were tired of me.”

Her bottom lip quivered. “No.”

Fuck. Was she going to cry? “I can be a pain in the ass,” he tried. “I know that. Alex and Ben always - but I didn’t want to make you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” she got out fast, her words tumbling over each other. “I want you.” She flushed pink and bit her bottom lip, folded her hands in her lap.

“You want me,” he murmured, not sure he believed what he’d heard.

But her eyes were suspiciously wet. She shrugged and set her jaw, looking away from him.

“I feel like I keep opening my mouth and saying the exact wrong thing. You want to nurse him, baby, then let’s do that. Come on.” He stood up, leaving their plates where they were, gesturing for her to stand.

She glanced to the table. “But you’re not finished-”

“I’m done,” he said. “I’ll come back and raid the fridge in the middle of the night anyway. I don’t sleep that much.”

She blinked but stood up with him, moving slowly, and he caught her fingers in his hand and tugged her towards the couch. Wyatt was heavy on his shoulder, not quite asleep but definitely headed that way. Kate was silent as she followed him.

Things had gotten complicated between them. Well. More complicated. And partly, he knew, it was his own damn fault, opening his mouth all the time and telling her how he felt, how he wanted her, crowding her. But it was also all the damn tragedy and trauma that surrounded them both, Castle having been a part of it however unwittingly, and Kate still working to believe it could be over.

The more he knew about what had been done to her, the more he loathed the whole fucking world for not stopping it, himself for not doing something sooner, and his father-

dead. Dead. He was dead, and viciously, and at least it had been at Kate’s hand.

The blood that had smeared her neck and face, drenched the recovery gown, the gruesome terror on her face and the wildness in her eyes as he’d come into that room - and then how she’d calmly washed it all off in that sink in her room and changed into clothes and led him to the boys like it hadn’t happened at all.

God, she was a Valkyrie. Possessed and possessive. A consuming fire. Of course he was in love with her.

She was standing before him at the couch, a little raise of her eyebrow like what are you doing and he realized he’d been sitting stupefied on the couch with Wyatt against his chest.

Castle cleared his throat and shifted the boy to one side, cradling him, sliding his own knees wide enough for her to slip in between. She turned her back and sank down to the couch, her hands on his thighs for balance, and he freed one arm to wrap it around her torso.

Kate let out a slow breath and leaned into him, pulling her knees up and sitting cross-legged. Castle brought the now-sleeping Wyatt around to tuck him up against her, trying to regulate his breath and his heart as he felt her body against his.

Kate shimmied in his embrace, inched her shirt up. Castle couldn’t stop himself from skimming his fingers up her thin ribs to help her, and her skin prickled with goose bumps. Castle bared her shoulder and dusted his kiss along the slope, closing his eyes to the warmth of her under his mouth.

“Rick,” she whispered.

He could feel her heart thudding through her body. At her neck where he was close. He pulled back just enough and she lifted her arms, tugging the shirt over her head and off.

She was bare before him, all white-cream skin and the knobs of her spine, the brown peak of her nipples and the pink-flush touch at her neck and cheeks. Her hair was silky where she laid back against him, caressing his neck as she glanced his way, and he gave in to the urge to kiss her mouth.

She mewled into him, her pulse thundering in the best kind of way; he felt it under his fingertips as he caressed her neck, and she nudged her nose against his cheek and came in for another kiss.

It was a little fiercer this time, like she’d missed him - or maybe she’d thought he wouldn’t kiss her again and she’d been afraid - and he stroked his hand down her throat to her collarbones.

Kate sighed into his mouth and pushed her tongue past his. She tasted rich, and of grief, salt against his lips. He dusted his knuckles against her sternum and slowly unfurled his fingers to knead her breast.

Though her body was trapped before him, her back to his chest, she was gripping his thighs in response. Dragging her nails up to his inside thighs, reaching back to grab his flanks, massaging what flesh she could reach.

He nudged her mouth away with his nose, pressed his cheek to hers. She was breathing raggedly now, her whole chest heaving, and he let himself squeeze her breast and thumb her nipple.

She arched, just a quick reaction of her body, but it told him they were pushing it again.

“Nurse,” he murmured into her ear. “Let me watch.”

She let out a breath and reached her hand up to cup the side of his face. “He’s asleep,” she croaked.

“We’ll have to wake him up. And then after that, they are both going to bed, and so are you and I.”

“Oh, God, yes.”

\-----


	22. Chapter 22

“Kiss me,” she urged, laying back on the bed and dragging him over her. His mouth zeroed in on hers without delay and she groaned into the open heat of him.

Castle palmed her hips and dragged the shirt up her ribs, fingers rough and urgent, and she lifted up just enough for him to get the damn thing off of her. She gripped him by his ears and angled his mouth-

“Oh, God,” she whimpered. He sucked hard on the slope of her breast and licked a trail down and under and she was arching up into his body, need shooting through her like flame, burning.

His mouth lifted from her breast before he got to any of the good parts and she moaned, curling her fingers in the hair at his nape, tugging on the collar of his shirt. But he was hovering above her, and she reluctantly opened her eyes.

“Slow down,” he husked, staring down at her. She nodded and pushed at his body, off of her, and that twisted look came over his face why, what did I do but she slid her knee over his hips and straddled him.

“Then let’s focus on you,” she murmured, pressing her palms flat to his shoulders. “How’s that?”

“Mm, I could be into that,” he grinned. She loved that self-satisfied smirk, what an arrogant asshole he was (but beneath that so insecure), and she leaned in and roughly kissed him for it, biting that full lower lip.

“Okay, then,” she whispered against his mouth. “Shirt off.”

He growled something like assent and lifted his torso; she felt his abs contract and harden between her thighs and her heart began to pound. She reached in and helped him with the shirt, yanking the cotton over his head and tossing it away. He grinned and rubbed his hands up and down her thighs, leaning back against his pillow and watching her.

Kate paused, caught by the dark light in his blue eyes, shadowed by the night. She touched the firm line of his abdominals where they met the inside of her legs, sealed together by sweat and heat. 

His skin rippled where her fingers went. She glanced up at his eyes again, met the grey starlight in them. He was staring at her, moonstruck, and she pressed her hands into him for balance as she leaned in again.

She kissed him slowly, savoring the drag of lips and tongue, the wet slide against him. Her hair fell forward and he scraped it back, cradling her head as she sank into the heat of him. His mouth, his mouth, God, she needed his mouth always, always-

He pulled her back, staring up at her, and he looked like he was going to say something; he was going to say something and she was going to fall apart, but she wanted more than that tonight.

Kate pressed her fingers over his lips just to keep him silent, but he curled his tongue along her touch and sucked her fingers into his mouth.

She moaned and dropped against him, unable to hide the tremble of her body, her forehead pressed against his chest. The eroticism of his mouth suckling her fingers made her hot, hot; she was burning beneath her skin, the urge to rock against him overwhelming.

He nipped the ends of her fingers and she withdrew them, sliding a wet trail down his chin and throat. Felt him moan. Felt her pelvis shiver against his hips. Castle gripped her thighs and squeezed, warning or needing, but she took the hint and dragged herself down his body.

She got her teeth in the button of his jeans.

“Oh, God,” he yelped.

Her cold nose warmed against the skin below his belly button; she could smell the musk of him. It made her mouth water, remembering how he tasted, how it felt to have him against her tongue, his head lodged deep - almost to her throat.

“Kate,” he moaned.

She dragged her hands down his ribs and popped open the button on his jeans, rocking slowly against him, feeling it tighten her nipples, all that sensation. Castle was kneading her thighs, touching her knees, the tops of her legs, her forearms, anywhere he could put his hands.

She unzipped his jeans and he growled, something deep and aggressive and demanding, and she flicked her eyes up to his face. He was staring down at her, all that heavy terrible need in his gaze, the weight of his wonder and his adoration. She dipped her chin and lowered her eyes to his jeans, realized she was straddling his thigh and making it impossible to pull his pants off.

She took a breath and slid off of him, pressing herself against his side and sliding her hand inside his pants. He caught a hard breath and wrapped his arm around her neck, his mouth turning into her.

A kiss at her forehead where he could reach, her hair, but she laid her cheek against his chest and angled her knee over his, curling into him. Her palm cupped the erection burgeoning in his pants, the material of his boxers a taut band between them.

“Kate, Kate, oh God, that’s it, baby, oh fuck.”

She kissed his chest, licking his nipple as she teased her fingers along his length. He was hot and groaning, sweat dampening his skin where she met him, and the wonderful mystery of his cock was pulsing under her hand.

“God, you feel so good,” he panted. 

She could tell he was restraining himself, a tight leash on his instinct to buck into her hand, so she touched her tongue to his nipple and then grazed him with her teeth.

“Oh, fuck!” His hips jerked hard and his head rolled on the pillow; the heat of him was burning. 

She lifted up and kissed his sternum, the arc of his ribs, let her tongue play against the hard plane of his stomach. He was groaning, panting her name, cursing, one of his hands tangled in her hair and gripping. He released her to touch the top of her head and she put her mouth against the trail of kinky, dark hair just above his boxers.

“Oh, God, Kate, I can’t stand it.” He was jerking upright in bed and shoving his pants down, kicking them off while she tried not to laugh, surprised, pleased with herself and him and the huge cock he was unveiling.

She gripped his forearm to halt his movement, his jeans tangled around one ankle but his boxers half off his ass. “Wait,” she said. “Slow, remember? Let me do that.”

“I don’t think I can survive you doing it,” he harshed.

“Too bad.” She lifted up on her knees and made her way down his leg to untangle the jeans from his ankle. He grunted and she pushed his pants off the bed, caressed his calf up to the back of his knees.

“Kate. Damn it.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder, smirking, and circled his knee with her fingers. He was glaring at her, all righteous indignation. A little ruined by the hot spark of lust burning in his eyes, but she really liked ruining him.

Kate turned and straddled his knee, but she felt the wet press of her panties against her sex. She realized she felt safe, that the purple silk lent her some kind of damn shield, a way of holding herself in check, and she was so damn tired of being restrained.

But first Castle. He’d never - she’d have to make him mindless with it first. Make him forget. 

She lifted up and put both hands on the waistband of his boxers, yanked them down ruthlessly. He barked her name and came upright, torso and cock both, springing up for her, released. She worked fast to get the boxers off of him, he kicked his foot and got the last of it, and she came crawling up his body, her breasts swaying and touching his pulsing erection.

“Fuck, fuck,” he moaned, staring down at her. 

She let her breasts rub against the underside of his cock and his eyes rolled back. 

Kate dipped her head down and kissed that bobbing head, licked the tip of him where the salt formed a wet drop of- 

“Mmm,” she hummed. Tasted like him.

“Fuck, fuck, Kate, I can’t stand it.”

She slid her hands into the waist of her panties and slowly worked them off, keeping her eyes on his face. He was gulping fast breaths, his neck arched, his fists in the bedding, and she finally got her underwear down her legs and off.

Bare. Both of them naked.

Much better.

“Rick,” she called softly, palming his thighs. His legs were spread a little, and as she called his name, his hips bucked as if responding to the sound of her voice.

He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her.

She opened her mouth and closed it over the head of his cock.  
Castle cursed and grabbed her upper arms, gripping her hard enough to bruise. Her heart rate spiked, her belly coiling tight, and she slid her knee over his thigh and sank down.

“Whoa, fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck. You’re so wet. Why the fuck - the fuck-”

She grinned and licked back up to his head, suckled the tip of him for that taste that kept beading up. “Feels good,” she husked back at him.

“Oh, God, Kate. So dangerous. God.”

She blew softly on his cock and he pulsed with it, his length growing thicker. She dipped her mouth down him again and sucked hard, intent on having him, pulling every drop of that salt-fresh essence into her.

“So wet,” he groaned. “Kate.”

She sucked him, her fingers digging into the bones of his hips with her intensity. She lifted up with a wet pop of her mouth, licking the head of him, releasing her death grip on his hips.

He was panting and staring wild-eyed down at her, and he lifted upright and caught her against him. His kiss was frantic and scorching, but she could feel the open lips of her sex against his upper thigh, the electric current that coiled up into her breasts.

He cupped one and thumbed her nipple, and she cried out, rocking hard, trying to find his cock with her hand. Castle released her breast and ripped his mouth away, breathing hard, his eyes blue flames.

“I want to touch you,” he husked.

“You are touching me,” she whispered. She finally found his cock and closed her fingers around him. He groaned and shivered into her touch, and she kissed him again even as his cock swelled in her hand.

“Let me touch you, love.” His hand knotted in her hair and pulled her mouth away from him. “I want to know what you feel like.”

She sank back in his lap, stroking her fingers along his cock almost without thinking. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on her neck, but his free hand slid around her thigh and touched her.

“Oh, God,” she gasped.

“Easy, easy,” he whispered, leaning into her. His lips touched her gaping mouth, her bottom lip caught between his as he suckled at her. “Steady, love. I just want to touch you.”

“Oh, please,” she whimpered.

“Easy,” he murmured. His fingers circled the outline of her sex, disappeared. She moaned and her forehead crashed into his. She realized she was gripping his cock reflexively, pumping him as he teased.

“More,” she whispered. “More, more-”

“Easy, love, just a touch.” She felt his knuckles against her sex, the rough scrape, and then she realized he was angling his cock along her folds.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, trembling.

“Shhh,” he hushed her, touching his lips against her still-open mouth. 

She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Or close her damn mouth. Oh, God.

“That’s it, baby. Nice and easy. Just to know how hot and wet you are. Stay still, steady.” His fingers crushed the knot of her hair.

She was shaking; she wound an arm around his neck and pressed her breasts to his chest, dropping her head to his shoulder.

She saw only shadows, darkness, the flash of his hand, the form of his huge cock. He was so big. She had no idea how that was ever going to fit inside her; where the hell was it supposed to go?

“No, baby,” he whispered, kissing her ear, his tongue tracing the shell. “Not going to do that to you, sweetheart. Not right now. Not for a while. Just this. A little kiss.”

A little kiss? Oh, God. Oh, God.

His hips shifted and she felt an agonizing glide of thick, pulsing - his cock. Oh, God, his cock was dragging through her folds.

Kate shuddered and he went absolutely still.

“Kate.”

She swallowed a breath, another, lifted her head up to look at him.

“Easy,” he murmured. “Slow it down.”

She whined and crashed her mouth into his, hungry, desperately hungry, canting her hips against him.

He caught her around the waist and dragged her off of his lap, his arm tucked under the backs of her thighs so that her legs closed. She growled in frustration, squeezing his cock in her urgency.

His hand skimmed down her back, teased over her ass, and she wanted to get him back for that, wanted to make him undone with it.

She pushed off his chest and balanced her palms on his legs, everything burning in her blood, pounding in her heart. She was soaking wet between her legs, she could feel it on her upper thighs, and she glared at him.

He curled his finger in her hair and brushed it against her cheek.

Kate shivered, bit her bottom lip with her teeth. Her breasts were heavy, her cunt soaked in that wet fire, but she leaned in and kissed him.

He groaned and tried to pull her back against him, but she jerked away again, her lip stinging where he’d bitten her. She lowered her head and kissed the head of his cock.

Castle cursed, gripping her head, but she suckled at his tip and then swallowed his shaft.

His hands were making hot tracks through her hair, pulling it back from her face and she glanced up, met his eyes. He was out of his mind already - just that fast - and she worked her throat to swallow more of him.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, Kate-”

His hips began to rise up and she had to abandon the plan to touch more of him just so she could hang on. She was balanced precariously on his knees, his feet over the side of the bed, and so she had to wrap an arm around his lower back for leverage.

“Kate,” he growled. “Kate. I can’t - I’m gonna come if you don’t-”

She used her tongue to tease him where she could, bobbed her head up and down hard again, back and forth, working the wide girth of his cock. She managed to find his balls with her hand, rolling them, and just like - he roared her name, came hotly inside of her mouth.

\-----

When she lifted her head from his cock, her fingers tender and gentle and loving as she arranged him against his thigh (fuck), Castle gripped her neck and arm and dragged her up even as he flopped down to his back in the bed.

She chuckled a little, her breath against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could manage, his heart rate still jack-knifing. He cleared his throat and pressed a kiss against her forehead, the side of her nose, her eyelid.

“You are the most fucking amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

She laughed then, but he wasn’t laughing. He was the most damn serious he’d ever been. Everything was so final and last and never again. She was it for him; no one had or would or could possibly come close to the fucking tsunami of feeling that came over him when he’d skimmed his cock against her wet sex.

He shifted his hand down to her ass and kneaded her flank, hugging her tightly across the shoulders. Her hair was sweat-damp against his his cheek, his neck. She let out a breath that sounded a little more unsteady.

“You can’t deny it,” he husked. “How it felt, me touching you. My cock against you. You felt that too.”

“I felt that,” she whispered. Her fingers curled at his chest, above his heart. He wanted to tattoo her name there, claim himself for her because she wouldn’t do it.

“Could you taste yourself on me?”

“God,” she whispered, her face pressing into his shoulder.

“Is that a yes?”

“I don’t - know. I wasn’t really paying attention to that.”

Castle dragged his hand between the cheeks of her ass and dipped his fingers to the slick slide of her cunt. Her body jolted when he barely even touched her, and he curled his fingers quickly and brought his hand up to her mouth.

She shifted up, lifting off of him. “What...”

“Taste yourself. And then let me kiss you so I can taste it too.”

She stared at him, something wild and desperate on her face as he brought his fingers to her mouth. She parted her lips and her tongue darted out before he could move, licking along the prints of his fingers. He moaned softly, this seductive innocent above him, taking his fingers into her mouth like she’d done his cock.

She groaned, lashes fluttering, and sucked the taste of herself off his fingers. He withdrew his hand to catch back of her neck, pull her down to him.

“Don’t swallow,” he husked. “Stay right there and let me taste it on your tongue.”

She kissed him; before he even lifted his head, she was crashing her mouth down into his, shoving her tongue inside. He growled around her lips, suckled and stroked his tongue against hers, lapping up the taste of her. He couldn’t go down on her, not without building up her resistance to orgasm, but this was - such a fucking erotic tease.

She broke with a smack of lips and breathing hotly, her eyes glittering and dangerous above him. He knew she could pushed right back to that edge, but he wasn’t sure how far he could take her, and he wasn’t going to chance it.

He could - conceivably - be made to come all night, time after time. His body was impressive, his recovery time almost none at all.

But it wasn’t at all fair to her, still writhing her hips against him.

Castle rolled them onto their side and stroked the hair back from her neck, cupping her jaw. “Easy,” he reminded her, trying to be gentle with it. “Good?”

“Good,” she said quickly, nodding, her eyes alert and sharp and restless.

“Then let me pay attention to you,” he murmured, skimming his hand down her breast.

“Yeah?” She knew it too, how close she was, and yet he could feel her heart quicken.

“Turn over,” he told her, leaning in to kiss her softly. “On your stomach, Kate.”

Her skin rippled and she laid herself out before him without hesitation, her face into the pillow, her eyes squeezing shut.

Last time, he’d fucked her ass cheeks when he’d told her that command. Not this time. However, he couldn’t resist sitting up and palming her ass, kneading. She whimpered and brought her arms up to clutch the sides of the pillow.

Castle spread his knees and sat on her lower back. She grunted and turned her head, one eye opening, looking at him.

“Hush, love.” Preempting a word from her, he leaned forward and planted his hands on her ribs, dug his thumbs into the muscles at her back.

She moaned and closed her eyes.

He trailed his kiss to that perfect slope of her shoulder, began massaging slow circles beside the column of her spine. As he worked, he could feel her body melting under him, the tension of near-orgasm wavering and breaking its hold over her. He was careful to keep the eroticism in check, though it was all erotic, and sensual, and she made those noises that had his cock struggling to rise.

Not this time. No. He was going to bring her back down.

He shifted just enough to reach for the bedside table, withdrawing the bottle of lotion. He used it for regular maintenance, so to speak, and there was a taboo and delicious pleasure in coating her back with the unscented lotion. He massaged it into her muscles, the planes of her bones meeting the grace of her form, and she hummed below him.

His cock was bobbing up, plainly aroused, but he ignored it in favor of removing strands of hair from the grease of lotion and placing his kiss to her nape. He kneaded his fingers into her shoulders, working the tight muscles that connected her neck all the way out to her deltoids along top of her arms. She was boneless now, and the humming was that guttural, deep pleasure that seemed to vibrate in her bones and through his own body.

He’d had a class in erotic massage, had to for a thing in China, but this was an entirely new and distinct experience. As she melted into bliss beneath him, it took everything in his will power to not wrap his hand around his cock and bring himself off with the same relieved sigh.

Instead, he touched her everywhere until she fell asleep.

\-----

He had a stack of files on his thighs and his back against the headboard, sometime around four in the morning, when Kate jerked upright in bed and bolted for the bathroom. 

Astonishment froze him in place for just long enough that Kate slammed the door shut before he even moved. He shuffled the medical notes to the floor as he got to his feet, winced when he heard the unmistakeable sound of sickness.

She wretched three times before he’d made it to the bathroom door, and he twisted the knob and stepped-

“No,” she moaned. “Castle.”

“Kate. You’re sick. Let me-”

“Get the hell out,” she groaned, turning her head away from him. She was curled over the toilet, her face buried in her hands, elbows propped on the seat. Her shoulders hunched; he could see her fighting the urge to vomit.

“Kate, I can-”

“Get. Out.” She lifted a hand and waved him away. “I don’t want you in here. Just leave me alone.”

He backed out, hesitating on the threshold for only a moment, just enough to hear her let go of her control and throw up again. 

Castle closed the door, but he waited outside, listening for-

“Go away.” She yelled at him through the door, but then he could hear her gag on her own words, her dinner coming up again.

Oh, damn. Dinner. Tomato sauce was highly acidic. 

His fault.

Fuck.

Castle left the bathroom door, sank down to the mattress, rubbing his hands over his face. She was - wow. It didn’t sound good. She barely seemed to stop before she was throwing up again.

She didn’t want him seeing her like that; she didn’t want him to hear it either. And he actually got it. After the intimacy of bed, vomit wasn’t exactly how he’d want the morning-after to go either.

Castle pushed up from the bed and left the room, wandering out into the living room enshrouded in that grey, not-yet-dawn light. The built in bookcases that flanked the fireplace, the television mounted above, the modern couch and chairs - seemed lifeless somehow. Maybe it was the lack of light, maybe it was something wrong with him.

He stepped past the couch, the grey planks of the wood floor under his feet, running his fingers along the back of the soft material. The kitchen was empty and clean and neat, and he opened one of the beautiful cabinets he’d installed himself, pulled down a glass.

He got her water from the fridge door, no ice, and headed back through the silent, empty rooms. He hadn’t realized just how much the house had changed in the last few days, how the living room seemed less livable without two boys giggling as they climbed the furniture, how the kitchen was stark without Kate sitting at the table watching him cook.

One day. Two days. And nothing was the same.

Back inside his bedroom, he came in just as the toilet flushed, but the door didn’t open. He laid the glass on the bottom step of the stone stairs, right in her line of sight if she did open it, and then he headed up to the boys’ room.

She didn’t want him listening to her get sick. He understood; he really did. What kind of privacy had she been allowed in the last three years? None. Absolutely none; he was even now reading her damn medical files that proved just how monitored and spied on she had been.

At the top of the stairs, he opened the gate quietly and stepped into the room. The windows let in whatever grey light was available, and he could see the boys in their lonely bed against the far wall. They ought to have separate beds, even though Kate had been the one to suggest they sleep together. Two beds gave them their own space, though he’d never prevent them from crawling out and cuddling with each other.

It ought to be decorated. Not just two guys building a stupid castle in the woods and using bachelor pad standards, but actual things for the boys. On a flight from Cairo to Paris, there had been a parenting magazine left in the seat pocket; he’d used it to brush up on his French. But of course, as always happened to him, the entire thing was burned into his brain, word for word, image for image.

The kids’ room should look like those images. Not just a handful of quickly-acquired toys scattered on the floor, but cutesy prints on the walls and their clothes in a chest of drawers and a diaper-changing station with the mobile overhead to keep them distracted. A rocking chair that wasn’t a damn lazy-boy recliner. 

The bonus room in the tower was so spacious that the boys might never feel crowded, but if they did, he could put up a wall or even allow one boy to have the room above Colin’s. Probably Wyatt, the busy one who seemed oblivious to sadness, always easy-going...

He was proud that he already knew something of their little personalities. In the grey room, with their bodies pressed into the corner of the bed, he felt proud of all of it.

Distracting himself from Kate puking downstairs - that’s what he was doing.

He moved forward silently and squatted down to pick up the bunny from the floor, tucked in close to Wyatt. James was asleep on top of his rag doll, but he did see the second rag doll in the bed with them. 

“Not quite a little traitor, are you?” he murmured, touching the top of Wyatt’s head. He smoothed the boy’s hair down, and then touched James’s foot, and then he stood up again, withdrawing slowly from their room.

Blocks with their names on them. A mantle shelf along this wall by the hallway, with books. Books. He had a collection of books in the living room’s built-ins, and reading had always been his retreat here. He had never let Black know just how much he’d craved to read, a story different from his own, a story that made sense.

The boys would need stories too. Stories that made sense of their lives, of what had been done to their mother without her consent. Stories that made them understand that they were still so deeply loved, no matter their creation.

God, the work ahead of them was daunting.

Castle came back down the stairs in time to hear her throwing up again, and he sighed, sinking to the bottom step. The water glass was untouched and the door firmly closed. 

She didn’t want him listening to this. There wasn’t anything sexy or mysterious about throwing up in the bathroom. And it was his own fault, feeding her acidic tomato sauce instead of being smart and sticking to bland things like mashed potatoes.

Castle stood once more and gathered the water glass, pulled a towel from the closet, and then he headed for the bathroom door. He opened it quickly, not letting himself look, flipped on the overhead vent so it would keep the air flowing.

“Water, a wash cloth. And I’m gone.”

He closed the door; he hadn’t even seen her, though the scent of sickness prickled at his nose. He took the medical records he’d printed out, the pen and notebook he’d been using, and then he found the laptop in the bedside table’s lower cabinet. He took everything into the living room and set up camp on the wide wooden coffee table.

It had been Colin’s baby; he’d planed a huge oak tree trunk down to a fist’s height, the rings of the tree as the surface of their coffee table. It was such an exotic and beautiful creation, and Castle, even in the middle of things, found himself wanting to show it off to Kate. 

She’d been so overwhelmed and in awe of the place when they’d first gotten here that he hadn’t given her a lot of extra details. Now he wanted to share all of his stories, the fun he and Colin had found in building something of their dreams together, and how fun he and Kate could have too, making this space into their own.

He was thinking of living with her here forever.

Of course, more likely, they had seven more weeks. But if he could put children’s books on shelves in the boys’ room, fill their drawers with clothes and their baskets with toys, then he thought maybe he could just... talk her into it.

He hoped, most of all, that when her stomach settled, that she came looking for him.

That’s what he wanted most.

And he knew how pathetic it sounded.

\-----

Kate swished the water around in her mouth and spit it back out into the toilet, lifted up to flush it. She settled the glass on the edge of the floating trough sink, and then she sank back down to the floor, letting her cheek press to the cool tile.

She felt drained out. Limp and shaky and hollowed out. In three years she hadn’t once gotten sick. Of course, starvation strikes had shrunk her stomach and there had been the four or five times that Black had forced a tube down her throat and fed her anyway, and she’d thought about getting sick but it throwing up with a tube down her throat had proved to be dangerous.

She never wanted spaghetti again.

That made her really sad. So sad she could cry. His spaghetti had been so good, and now even thinking about it made her mouth water in that bad bad way.

She heard herself whining; it echoed in the huge bathroom. But she didn’t care. She felt miserable, and sweat was drying grossly on her skin, and she wanted to die.

Her guts twisted again and she felt it coming up again.

\-----

When the shower cut on, Kate slumped to the bench seat and pulled her knees up, laid down directly on the tile and closed her eyes. The water beat against her body, washing her clean of sick-sweat and the stench of stomach acid. She could barely move, whatever energy she’d had now emptied out of her.

She drifted in and out, thinking she’d wake and move when the hot water ran out, but it never did.

She fell asleep at one point, had strange dreams, nightmares about her water breaking and having to hide, pushing the babies back up inside her to keep them safe. When she finally woke, she realized her left leg was pins and needles and her hair was soaked. She shifted up, her arms shaking with her weight, and she got her feet to the tile floor.

Kate stumbled as she moved to the door, curling her fingers into the button to shut it off. The water ceased immediately, leaving the room in humid quiet, steam swirling around her body. She stumbled out, grabbing the towel from the rack, and she wrapped it around herself tightly, goose bumps breaking out on her arms.

She took another sip of water from the glass, swished it around in her mouth, testing the taste before she swallowed. She leaned against the sink and turned the water on, fished around in the cup for a toothbrush. 

He had given her a pink one; she hated pink, usually, but for some reason it made her feel better. She found toothpaste in the narrow linen closet - open shelved, no door, so it was easy to find. She brushed her teeth slowly, spitting into the sink and using hot water. She had to brush her teeth again, paranoid, still feeling weak and sick despite the shower.

Kate tightened the towel around her and held it closed with one hand, moved cautiously for the door. When she twisted the knob and opened the door, the room was empty.

She let out a slow breath and glanced at the stone steps, but they were dark and quiet.

She headed for the closet where Castle had hung up all of her clothes, her new clothes - that just been today. Damn, this day never ended. One hit after another.

But at the same time, there had been so many great moments. New sunglasses that had given her a whole new outlook, a mask and a shield against the too-bright world, the sense that she could be anything behind them.

Castle sneaking into the dressing room and the obvious and thrilled admiration for her in those clothes. In those bras. 

Seeing the boys ride on the train with their uncle, how excited they were to catch sight of her. Heading down to the depot and collecting them off the train, kissing their little faces.

The drive home, she and the boys falling asleep while Castle drove. How safe she had felt.

Even dinner. Dinner had been so wonderful, and she had ruined it by throwing up.

(Castle holding her as she nursed the boys, the feel of his body against her back, the love for those boys, the awe in watching them. Taking him in her hand and watching him come, the thrill as he’d told her turn on her stomach, running her fingers through his hair, the yelp of his voice as he’d cursed at her because he was so aroused.)

Ew. She felt sick again.

Kate leaned back in the closet, sank slowly to her ass, bowing her head to her knees. No more sexy stuff. Made her stomach churn.

Kate licked her lips and tried to swallow it back, took a long, deep breath. She lifted a shaking hand to her head and closed her eyes.

After a moment, the feeling subsided, though her stomach still rolled. She sat up straight again and reached for the clean pair of underwear she’d picked. The purple ones were somewhere on the bedroom floor, of course, but these were a nice, pretty white. Little white flowers set in a near-invisible pattern. 

She scanned her own selection of clothes but they were all stiff and new. Instead, she took another one of his t-shirts, this one a pale, sky blue, and she pulled it on over her head, her shoulders drooping at the soft, thin cotton.

This was a great shirt. 

She picked up the towel from the floor and moved back into the bathroom to hang it up. Instead, her stomach rolled and the smell of tile and the humidity made her sick, like a conditioned response.

She left the towel hanging on the counter and backed out fast, moving to the bed and curling up under the covers. She laid for a while, just trying to keep it down, and then she realized she had no idea where Castle was.

The boys room was right up those stairs, and she was tempted, but it might be pathetic to fall asleep with her head on their mattress again.

And she wasn’t sure how fast she could get back down to the bathroom if she needed it.

She slid her legs out of bed, but brought the pillow and the edge of the thin coverlet with her, dragging everything off. She wrapped it around her shoulders and took a step towards the stairs, but she halted there.

Where was Castle? She’d been violently sick, and he had thankfully retreated, but now she wondered if he’d fallen asleep somewhere. He should get his bed back, especially if she was gonna bail and go upstairs.

Kate stepped out of the bedroom, gathering the coverlet around her as she trailed into the living room.

Castle was sitting on the couch, hunched over a laptop on the tree ring of a coffee table, papers and files spread out. She must have made a noise, but he glanced up, sat back as he took her in.

“You feel any better?”

“Not really.” Kate bit her bottom lip and stood in the doorway, and then she came forward, fast so she wouldn’t think too much, and she crawled onto the couch with him. She laid her head on his thigh, hugged the pillow to her chest with the blanket draped over her shoulders.

Castle sighed softly and dropped a hand to her hair, combing. He was adjusting the blanket to cover her drawn up knees, tugging it down over her feet, and she wormed her way back against the couch, deeper into his lap.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “No more acidic foods.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, curling the pillow against her chest and closing her eyes.

She felt him bend deeply over her and the soft kiss against her temple, but she was already sliding into sleep.

\-----

He worked on deciphering her medical records as the room turned from dingy grey to dawning blue to that hesitant yellow of morning. He put the files aside, closed the laptop, and sat in the faint light as it crept across the floor. The sun was a jewel between the trees, a smear of white through the shifting green of the leaves.

Her hair was wet, in heavy ropes around her neck and down her back, tangled from his fingers. He carefully wrapped a corner of the blanket around the ends of her hair and squeezed to soak up the water, trying to untangle it gently without disturbing her.

No use. He’d wake her, so he simply twisted it around and made a knot at her neck, hoping she wasn’t chilled.

He laid his hand on her shoulder and sank back into the couch, tilting his head up and closing his eyes. He hadn’t slept much, but he had his usual four hours and he didn’t think he’d get any more. He’d like to try though, curl up with Kate in bed and see how far this relative peace lasted.

His brain was usually too wired for sleep, and wired was the correct term: genetically altered. It made Colin crazy, the bouts of insomnia and the stuff in his head, but Castle had never had it quite that bad. He just - hadn’t gotten much sleep.

But he wondered now if he could train himself for more. If he could doze beside her, maybe, or even get two sets of four hours with a period of wakefulness in between. Just to stay with her longer like this.

He had just made up his mind to carry her back to bed and try it when Kate moaned and jerked upright, tangled in the blanket. She hunched over, her face going white and sweat-slicked just that fast, and then she ran.

“Kate-”

“Don’t-” But she was through to the bedroom before she could even finish her threat.

\-----

Kate sat before the toilet and buried her face in her hands, swallowing hard to keep from throwing up again.

Her hair hung in wet hanks around her face and tickled her neck. Her body was shaking, her mouth had a terrible taste in the back of her throat, and every time she tried to uncurl her knees from her chest, she threw up again.

A rap came on the door, her name.

“Go away,” she groaned.

“I’ve got a bucket - if you need it. Just - letting you know.”

“Castle,” she whined.

“Leaving you to it, promise.”

She was sweating so much she could smell herself. Her stomach rolled but she curled up tighter and pressed her forehead to her knees, taking shallow breaths. 

“Kate? Maybe-”

“God, Castle. Get out of here.”

“Nope, sorry.” She could already hear his voice unmuffled now as he opened the door but she didn’t lift her head. She could feel him standing before her, but it was hard to care when her guts were twisting like a fistful of knives.

She heard the toilet flush and groaned, lifting her head to glare at him. Castle knelt before her, hands coming up to grip her upper arms.

“Tell me what I can do.”

“Leave,” she growled.

“But I don’t want to.”

“Castle,” she whined, dropping her head back to her knees.

He sank to the floor beside her and she felt him curl his arm around her shoulders, bringing her slowly against his side. She breathed fast, swallowing to keep from being sick in front of him, and he lowered his chin to the top of her head.

“Dinner was my doing,” he murmured. “Least I can do now.”

She growled something even she didn’t understand, just wishing only that she could be miserable in peace, but she didn’t have the strength to push him away. Or herself. Any movement was liable to make her stomach revolt.

His fingers combed scratched at the hair sticking to her temple and combed it behind her ear, revealing her face to his eyes. She closed hers, shutting him out, but her body listed into his side.

“Want me to distract you?”

She wanted him to go away. She didn’t think he was going to do that though.

“How about I tell you a story? Anything you want to know.”

She groaned and pressed the heel of her hand into her eye socket. “I want to know how to make you go away.”

Castle chuckled. “Too bad. Not sure that’s possible, Beckett.”

She sighed, but in the next instant she had to press her hand over her mouth and jerk towards the toilet. She hung against the seat, swallowing hard, desperate not to throw up in front of him.

His hand came to her back, fingers scratching softly while she shuddered over the toilet. She had to gulp back the saliva that formed, but it was no use.

Oh, God.

She gagged and wretched, her stomach emptying into the bowl.

\-----

Castle stood and ran water in the sink over a washcloth, filled up the glass as well. He came back beside her while she shivered over the toilet, her fingers gripping the seat. She startled when he flushed it, but she was avidly not looking at him. He sank down beside her and lifted her head, wiped the cloth over her face until her eyes opened.

She was crying.

He pretended like he didn’t see it, knowing it was just exhaustion, and he tucked her into his side. He wiped the wash cloth down her neck and just inside her shirt, the sweat and sick feeling hopefully coming off. 

Kate mewled something small and sad and curled into him.

Castle sighed, wrapping his arms around her, petting her hair away from her face. She clutched his shirt with a fist and he pulled her into his lap, using the wash cloth now to cool her off. 

“It’s okay,” he murmured finally. “Feels bad, but it’ll be okay.”

She pressed her face into his neck and sucked in a juddering breath, her tears or the sweat or maybe just the water from the cloth transferring from her skin to his. He stroked her hair down and cupped the back of her head.

“When Colin turned eighteen, he celebrated by doing every damn terrible thing he could think of. He found a party downtown in some basement, a rave, you know? Black light and all that. He got drunk first, not that he hadn’t been before. And then he did a couple lines of coke. And then whatever else he could get.”

Kate didn’t speak, but her body seemed to ease - if only slightly.

“He called me. Or drunk dialed me. He was soaring. He had all these ideas about how we could get clear of our father. He sad he’d never seen it before, but it was all this perfect master plan. Scared the shit out of me, really.”

Kate’s knees angled into him, some of her shivering stopped.

“I was in Morocco for a thing. Attached to the Canadian ambassador. I called Alex, thinking he’d help since he was in the States. But Alex said it was Colin’s choice. He was legal, let him self-destruct.”

Kate shuddered, shifted a little so that her cheek was against his shoulder.

“So I left. Went AWOL, technically, since I was still in Military Intelligence then.”

Kate lifted her head, stared at him.

He shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable with the way this was going. “It’s not like I got in trouble. I took care of it. I found Colin at this apartment in Spanish Harlem - the very same place where I took you.”

“What?” she choked out.

“Yeah,” he grinned, stroking her hair back. “That’s how I got the place. Anyway, he was in this hooker’s apartment and she’d been doing her best not to let him die. That was about as much as she was capable of. I spent four days holding Colin’s head while he puked in that girl’s bathroom.”

“Gross.”

He chuckled and curled his fingers around her ear, softly kissed her forehead. Tasted sweaty. “Pretty gross, yeah. Not sure she’d ever clean that bathroom. When Colin was sobered up and out of the worst of his withdrawal, he made me promise to help that girl.”

“Did you?” she croaked.

“Mm, sorta. Tried to. She disappeared a few months later. Apparently she wasn’t as madly in love with Colin, or he wasn’t - they fought like cats and dogs and she smashed a printer over his head and ran off with all of his money.”

“Ouch.”

“Hm, well. Good riddance. But that was only the beginning of Colin’s crazy.”

“He’s not crazy,” she muttered. “Just sad.”

Castle frowned into the top of her head, cupped the back of her neck. “Yeah, baby. Just sad.” He kissed her temple again. “You’re right.”

“Always right,” she mumbled.

She seemed to be falling asleep.

\-----

Kate woke on the couch with Castle again, disoriented by a trip she didn’t remember taking, her mouth tasting like gym socks. 

“Fuck,” she muttered, pushing her face into-

What was this? His crotch. Oh, lovely. He had stretched out on the couch with her body between his thighs and now her mouth was over his swelling crotch.

His arm came down and caught her bicep, gripping. “Kate.”

“You don’t want my mouth on you right now,” she muttered. “Promise you that. I need some water.”

“Yeah, hell,” he croaked. She lifted her head and saw him swiping a hand down his face, blinking hard. He really was rather impressively aroused, and that was actually kinda sweet.

Especially since he’d seen her vomit more than once in that beautiful bathroom.

She patted his stomach as she rose to her feet, wincing at the sudden elevation. Castle put aside the laptop he’d been working on, hopped up with her. “I’ll get you some water. Or sparkling soda? Might be good to settle your stomach.”

“Water first,” she murmured, following him into the kitchen. She spotted the clock and nearly fell out. “Oh, God, it’s almost noon. Where are the boys?”

“Playing in their room. They’re fine.”

“Alone? God, Castle, they’re babies. They can’t-”

“Colin’s up there with them,” he said quickly, pulling down a glass. “Although, to be fair, you’d have been right. I would have left them up there to play. Fourteen months old isn’t old enough?”

She swallowed roughly and shook her head.

“Oh. Well, now I know. They’re really good kids though. I think they would’ve been okay.”

“When did Colin get back?” she husked.

“Around nine. He’s doing pretty good, actually. He said it was easier than he thought. He brought some groceries with him too.”

She made a face, but she took the water from him, lifting it in a kind of cheers before taking a tentative sip. It was cool and lovely down her raw throat, and she leaned back against the counter, pressed the glass against her chest.

She studied Castle. This man who seemed so at ease in every situation he encountered, be it a women’s lingerie store or sitting beside her on the bathroom floor as she threw up. Already he was miles away from that first impression, the security agent rolling through the door, face splattered with fresh blood, eyes like ice, her executioner. 

Nothing about him was cold or stone, even though that had been the face she’d seen, standing over Black’s body with the man’s blood still hot over her fingers, the blade.

“Thank you,” she said finally.

He smiled, a kind of shy thing almost, like he was pleased she’d noticed but he hadn’t been expecting her to. “You feeling any better?”

“Yeah, think so,” she said. “Boys give you trouble?”

“Not really,” he shrugged. His lips twitched. “Gave them eggs for breakfast.”

She gave a little huff of laughter, sipped at the water again, going slowly with it.

“Your stomach growled in your sleep pretty much non-stop,” he said. “Are - you hungry?”

She grimaced. “Definitely not.”

“Could you take some gatorade?”

She sighed. “I guess I ought to?”

“Yeah, babe. I think so.”

She nodded. “Lay it on me.”

“Colin brought it with him,” he said, giving her a look before he turned for the fridge.

She groaned and pressed her hand over her eyes. “Really? He could - feel that?”

“Something.”

“Damn. I’m surprised he came back at all.” She shivered in a sudden draft from the air conditioning and glanced down at herself. Still in just that soft blue shirt and panties. She was having trouble caring about it though.

Castle twisted the top off her gatorade and handed it over, nudging only a little. She took it and gave him the glass in exchange, sipped slowly at the blue gatorade.

“Alex called,” Castle said suddenly.

She jerked her eyes back to his, wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “He did.”

“He said he couldn’t find any reports indicating a heart condition.”

Sudden tears stung her eyes and she struggled to keep them back, mortified at how fast that had come on. She didn’t even know why. Because Alex cared? Because Castle hadn’t been permanently cut off from his brothers? Because it wasn’t what she’d thought it was?

Because it was something, her heart skipping and stopping and her breath closing down and that terrible feeling in her chest. It was something but it wasn’t a heart condition and so-

“He thinks I’m right,” Castle said quietly. He tapped the gatorade and she lifted it automatically to her lips, choked a little as she drank. “PTSD.”

“You never explained what that is,” she croaked, coughing through the burn of the drink.

“You really want to get into that now?”

“Yes,” she bit out, glaring at him. “You’re telling me that I was wrong, Castle. That my motivation for getting out of that fucking place was basically my crazy brain lying to me. I killed people - all on that supposition that I was going to die. I was going to die and leave those boys with him, and I had to at least take Black out with me.”

Castle looked so pained for her; deep lines, frown twisting his mouth, empathy so troubled and deep in his eyes it hurt her too. But she didn’t want pity. She wanted to know the truth.

She wanted to know what she’d done wrong, and what the price was, the toll it had taken, the cost she would have to bear.

“PTSD. Post-traumatic stress-”

“Stress?” she moaned, lifting a hand to her head.

“Don’t,” he growled, snagging her by the wrist. She flinched and his eyes turned violent, frothing. “That’s it right there, Beckett. Flinching like I’m gonna hit you. You think I’d hit you?”

“No,” she got out. But her heart was thumping a little. “No, I don’t. I just - haven’t had a lot of nice touch over the last few years.”

“Stress,” he said fiercely. “It’s a fucking lame word for what happens after trauma. But it’s nothing to roll your eyes at, Kate. They never like to say that stress can kill you, they try not to tell people in the middle of panic attacks that panic attacks can take you out. But they can.”

Panic attacks? God. Her heart stopping in the middle of the night was a panic attack?

“Mental condition that happens after experiencing life-threatening trauma or a terrifying event. And people get PTSD for just bearing witness to an event - not just experiencing it or living through it.”

“I guess three years of terror owes me some pretty fucking big PTSD.”

“Yeah,” he his jaw working. “It’s flashbacks, nightmares, severe or free-floating anxiety, uncontrollable and obsessive thoughts about that event - all of which interfere with daily functioning.”

“I don’t even know what daily functioning is anymore.”

Castle gave her a bleak look.

She sighed and stepped into him, leaving the gatorade on the counter to draw her arms around his torso. He sucked in a stunned breath and she was glad for that at least. He touched the back of her head with a hand a little too reverent, and she lifted up on her tiptoes to give him a closed-mouth kiss against his jaw.

Prickly with stubble. He hadn’t showered or shaved; he had just sat with her on the couch.

“So I wasn’t going to die,” she murmured. “All for nothing.”

He gripped her hard, suddenly and inexplicably, so that her breath caught, her heart kicked. “Kate. I don’t think you’ve heard any of what I’ve explained to you. Not today, not the last few days. Were you even listening when I talked about the elixir?”

She froze, her arms tight around him, her face buried in his shoulder. He had a fistful of her hair and the nape of her neck, and he was practically shaking her.

“You were going to die,” he said harshly. “God damn it. You won’t die, not if I can fucking help it, not if we’re careful. But you were on your way. If the panic attacks hadn’t done it, then the elixir most assuredly. He was going to milk you dry, Kate, and toss you away the moment you didn’t perform like he wanted.”

And just that fast, she was sobbing into his neck.

“Oh, damn,” he husked, wrapping his arms around her. “Kate. Please, honey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Hush, sweetheart, it’s okay. We’re going to make it okay.”

She didn’t even know why she was crying so hard.

\-----


	23. Chapter 23

“You’re not crazy,” he said again, setting her on the stool at the bar. It seemed important she know that, have that to hold on to. “That’s not what trauma-”

“Would you shut up with trauma?” she muttered, burying her hands in her face. “I feel like shit. I’m starving.”

He allowed a step back, giving her breathing room at least. “I can make something. Easier. Col brought-”

“The thought of food makes my stomach cramp,” she said, scowling as she lifted her head. 

She still had tear tracks down her face that she hadn’t bothered to wipe. Or she didn’t feel them any longer, so accustomed was she to sobbing before him.

Her face suddenly washed with understanding. “I’m being a bitch. I’m sorry. I hate crying. I don’t want to think about this anymore, Castle. I just want to - to feed those boys and give them something normal.” She swiped a knuckle under her eye. “And good. If that’s possible.”

“I think you’re already doing that,” he told her quietly. “And can you blame me then if I want to do the same for you? Something good, Kate.”

She shot him a wary look and folded her hands in her lap, her arms pressed against the counter so that her whole body was hunched in, closed off. Protected.

“This is already a million times over what I could pay you back,” she said. Her eyes were shadowed. “This is more than I can afford-”

“Please don’t say that,” he choked out. He flattened his hands on the counter to keep from hitting something. Demolishing the beautiful marble he and Colin had laid together. “Please don’t think about it like paying me back or else all of this - every time I touch you - I’m going make myself sick thinking you’re doing it for - for some kind of payment.”

She slapped him.

Off the stool and up in his face so that it stung. Her eyes were livid. “I don’t pay in sex, you asshole.”

“Then don’t talk about it like you are.”

“Did I say sex? Did I say that I felt like a prostitute? Or a fucking kept woman?”

His throat closed up. Had she? Did she?

“No,” she growled. “I take from you what I feel like fucking taking. Damn it. You’re making me so pissed off, I’m cursing. I don’t even have language of my own. It’s yours too.”

“Maybe that’s my problem,” he seethed. “You take what you feel like taking, sure you do, but then you turn around and talk to me like you do feel kept. Even your language is mine? What else is mine, Beckett? What else-”

She shoved on his shoulders. “Shut the fuck up. Just shut up.”

“I wanted you to say your heart,” he growled.

Her face went comically, heartbreakingly blank.

Everything drained right out of him. Castle stepped back, his hands dragging dully from the counter where he’d inadvertently trapped her. He longed to slink off with his tail between his legs, put himself in the middle of the boys upstairs, their play and fun, but she was manacles around his throat and balls. His heart.

He just stood there, breathing hard and trying to be patient. To wait for her ultimate decree, whatever that was. Her decision. A kept woman.

But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t look at him. She sank back down to the barstool and avoided him.

Castle swallowed through the thickness in his throat and moved towards the refrigerator. “Fresh fruit and pancakes. We’ll try that. Bland for your stomach.”

Maybe the boys would enjoy pancakes for lunch. He knew Colin would.

\-----

Why are you still here?

She couldn’t shake him. He was walking wounded and she’d done the wounding and now he was stacking dollar-sized pancakes on her plate. No smile yet; that hadn’t come back. But all the care and concern was still there.

It wasn’t her fault. He’d basically called her a whore.

Not her fault.

She wasn’t going to be touching him tonight, that was for damn sure. Bastard.

No smile yet. Face as smooth as glass. Blank. He was very good at that; he could give lessons. He was very good at it. He moved without a hitch, easily transferring those little, fist-sized pancakes to plates around the bar, pouring orange juice but milk for her, gathering napkins - linen, like they were at a garden party.

“I’ll get the boys,” he said, quietly. “And Colin. All the boys.”

She didn’t laugh; she didn’t smile either. Maybe she’d been doing that the whole time, sitting here at the bar with her face as blank as his. Maybe she’d learned it the same place he had.

Castle disappeared back through his bedroom and she slumped into the counter, her elbows propped up beside her plate, head in her hands.

She had accused him of calling herself a prostitute. That was actually what had happened. He had said he didn’t want her to feel like she was, and she’d slapped him for it, because how dare he think she thought that?

I wanted you to say your heart.

What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he stop... stop insisting on things that were so clearly impossible? 

Why did she know in her heart, without even probing it for veracity, that her dreams last night, when she’d been able to get deep enough asleep, were all about him?

Her dreams were about him. Even inside that facility, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from having those dreams where the boys’ father turned out to be a good man who was proud of his sons, who carried them around and showed them the world, his head bent over theirs, speaking words into their ears about sunlight in the meadow and shucking corn and how to swing for the fences.

Even in her head, even in the dreams she hadn’t been able to control, she had never been there. 

In her wildest fantasies, Kate Beckett never kept those boys.

“Here we are,” Castle called out. “And apparently ravenous.” Some humor in his voice.

Kate turned and saw Castle carrying James through the living room, the boy chewing on his own t-shirt’s collar. Behind Castle was Colin with Wyatt, a kind of lazy loop to his walk that made Kate stiffen.

Oh, yes. Colin was oozing his dislike for her. Eyes like black holes, no color, and he wouldn’t look at her.

He felt things. 

Right. Well, too bad, because she wasn’t a kept woman, and she wasn’t going to say what they wanted to hear. She hadn’t done that even when she’d been a kept woman, since that was, basically, what it had been, kidnapped, caged, kept.

Black had kept her, and he hadn’t given her back.

She wouldn’t scrape and bow to these two brothers any more than she’d-

James let out a plaintive noise and leaned out of Castle’s arms for her, whimpering. She slammed a halt to her track of thinking, tried to push back on the stool to give him room in her lap.

Castle lowered the boy to her thighs and she wrapped her arms around James tightly, buried her chin in his neck to kiss him. “Sorry,” she whispered in his ear, for him alone. He was the one she was sorry for.

And Castle. Who patiently took Wyatt from Colin and settled at the stool beside hers with the boy in his lap. Who gave Wyatt small, pre-cut chunks of fruit and pancake from his plate. Who was a good father, beyond even her stupid dreams in the darkness when she’d tried so very hard to not even think about who their father might be.

Colin sat down at the furthest seat, beside Castle, and groaned in appreciation as he poured syrup over his pancakes. No butter, just syrup, though Castle wrinkled his nose and made low comments to him about how disgusting it was.

Kate sat in silence, letting James nibble pancake from her thumb and lick syrup from her fingers. 

She had hurt Castle’s feelings. Badly. He was still being very considerate of her, and passing her syrup or butter or more fruit as she asked, but that smile was gone, gone, gone.

She kissed James’s temple as he tentatively studied a blueberry, turning it over and over in his fingers with some difficulty. Wyatt had no trouble picking up specific pieces of food; he was even trying to use Castle’s fork, grunting in frustration when Castle wouldn’t let him have it.

James sighed and put the blueberry down on the plate again, turned in her arms to bury his face in her chest. 

She was making him miserable.

She held him close, wishing she wasn’t the reason for his moroseness, wishing she knew how to do better. And if she was wishing for impossible things, then she wished for the money to pay Castle back for at least her own damn clothes, and for the boys to never have been born to Black, and for her to never have been so stupid as to stay and train, or better yet - to never have been walking in that damn alley, to have made her mother go with her straight to dinner, no field trips, no death, no kidnapping.

No boys. No Castle.

James mewled and clutched her shirt in his fists. “Mama, mama,” he babbled into her neck.

She pressed her cheek to the top of his head. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean it.”

She didn’t mean it.

She just wanted her mom and dad back alive.

\----- 

Castle set Wyatt down on his feet before the French doors, and James came running, tackling his brother and sending them both sprawling back into Castle’s legs. He chuckled and caught them both, but he didn’t try to separate them. They collapsed at his feet and he nudged James with his toes, pushing them off.

Wyatt scrambled up, but he didn’t have the confidence to stand, squatting down; James knocked into him and then tried to sit on his back, and Castle laughed. “Leaving you to it. Settle it like men.”

Wyatt cackled back at him, and even James had a sly grin on his face as he squirmed on top of his brother. Castle straightened up and headed back for the kitchen and the lunch clean up - only to find Kate had already started.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said quietly.

She didn’t look at him, just shrugging her shoulders, and he figured that was probably for the best. Doing her part, wanting to help out - those answers might send them right back into a fight.

He didn’t want to fight with her.

Castle moved around the island gathering the last of the plates, piled them beside the sink for her to rinse. She had the dish washer open and the top rack pulled out, carefully inserting glasses like she didn’t want to break anything.

“You can’t hurt it,” he said, gesturing to the glass. She glanced up at him and then away, leaving the glass where it was.

What a damn awkward mess this was.

Kate turned on the water and used the scrub brush to clean the top plate, and Castle just stood there. He didn’t want to take away a job she’d found if it made her feel helpful, but now he didn’t know what to do.

“Are you just gonna stand there?” she said, throwing him a glance over her shoulder.

He leaned against the counter. “Yeah?” Crossed his arms. “Yeah. Just - gonna stand here.”

She rolled her eyes and pulled out the bottom rack, started lining up the plates. She did it differently; not bad, just not the same way he did.

“Is there something you’re trying to screw up enough courage to ask me?” she said.

Colin had disappeared right after lunch, and now Castle thought maybe that had been a smart trick. “Uh, no. I’d just ask.”

“Well, at least there’s that.”

He nodded, feeling stupid, and cast his gaze towards the living room. James had the stuffed rabbit by an ear and Wyatt the other ear; it didn’t look like it would end well.

Still he didn’t move.

“Okay, all right,” she muttered, slinging a plate into the rack and turning towards him. “Enough, Castle.”

He felt helpless. First time in his whole damn life where he had absolutely no idea how to fix something.

She grabbed him by the wrist, lifted the dish washer door with her foot to kick it into place, and then she tugged him out of the kitchen. He followed because he didn’t know what she meant by enough and because why wouldn’t he follow her, and she led him to through the living room, heading for the back hall.

“Boys, be good,” she said sternly, a kind of tossed off command as she plowed through the hall with him in tow.

She yanked him around and pushed him to the bed, and while he was letting himself be shoved, she still had some power in her. Feist. She was wearing those too-short pajama shorts and the blue shirt from this morning, and her hair was still in the sad braid he’d done when she was half in his lap asleep.

“Enough,” she said again, glaring at him. He sank back to the mattress and let her stand over him, but her eyes narrowed. She knew he was giving her power on purpose.

“Enough... of?”

“This-” she growled, an arm gesturing. “Whatever the fuck is going on here. Just get over it, Castle. It’s done.”

He let out a breath, nodding. “Yeah. It’s done.”

She put her hands on her hips. “So?”

“So...” He was at a loss. He wasn’t entirely sure what was done either. She couldn’t possibly mean them because she was entirely unwilling to admit there was a them. And he knew that; he wasn’t stupid. 

“So stop moping,” she growled, gritting her teeth. She looked like she wanted to kick him, but instead she paced the length of the room. “I don’t feel good enough to make you feel better about a stupid fight, Castle.”

“You don’t have to make me feel better,” he blurted out. Make him feel better? What... exactly did she think this was supposed to be?

“Then smile or something.”

He went absolutely blank.

“And not just because the boys are being - whatever it was they were doing. Falling on each other. Smile at me.”

Apparently she heard that coming out of her mouth the same way he did, because her cheeks flamed bright pink and she came to a crashing halt. Her mouth opened, closed, and she swiveled her head towards him.

His lips twitched.

Her eyes went wide.

Castle couldn’t help. He tried. He tried not to laugh, oh God, but she was so adorable when she was mad.

“Shut up,” she growled, coming for him.

He was still laughing when she shoved on his shoulders, but he brought his arms up and caught her around the waist, dragged her down with him to the mattress. She huffed and let herself collapse on top of him, not unlike the boys out there, and he grinned up at her, rubbing his palms down her spine.

“Hey,” he said, his smile splitting his face. “Smiling at you now, Kate Beckett.”

“Shut up,” she muttered again, but it was a little breathless. She was wriggling on top of him, their legs tangled, her hands planted in the mattress, but not quite trying to push off of him.

He wound her loose braid around his hand and cradled the back of her head, angling her down to him. Her mouth touched his with a breath and they kissed.

She made a noise when his tongue slid slowly past hers. He inched his fingers under her shirt and felt the hot brand of her skin over her ribs. She was straddling his thigh, but it wasn’t rough and needy, just the slow tease of her lips and the lovely pressure of her groin against him.

She was learning to take it slow, make herself wait. She was being careful - to the best of her ability.

Castle released her hair and cupped the side of her face, thumbing her bottom lip when she lifted her head. Her eyes were dark, glints of green in the sunlight coming through the tower windows.

He stroked softly at her cheek, realized he was probably looking at her like a lovestruck idiot, but she was tender over him.

Her fingers stroked his shirt down over his chest, her eyes on him. “Much better,” she murmured finally. 

Kate kissed him, soft brush of lips, and then lifted up from his body. 

“Come on,” she said. “I want to go outside while there’s light.”

\-----

Kate laid on her back in the tall grass and watched the leaves dancing in between the brilliant sun. The canopy over her head was so thick with trees that it crowded out the glare that might necessitate sunglasses, but every so often the breeze would dip the branches and the sky would burst with light.

The grass tickled her cheeks where the light wind bent the blades, touching her forehead, the slope of her chest. She couldn’t see a single living soul, only the trees reaching high, but she could hear the boys through the grass, and Castle and Colin as they sat and talked, watching them.

She thought she could feel, from time to time, Castle’s eyes on her, though the natural rhythm of their conversation never faltered. She knew they might be talking about her, but for once, it didn’t make her wary, it didn’t raise her hackles. 

They were talking about her, but not for ill. Not to strap her down, not to hurt her. Not to violate. Here was peace.

Castle’s voice came to her on the soft roll of the grass rustling, just low enough a tone that it slid along her skin like a touch. Her lashes lowered with the sensation of him close, and the hum of insects and the call of birds melded into the modulation of his voice. She brushed her fingers over her bare thigh in time to his sounds, realized her body was attuned to him.

Kate let out a slow breath, opened her eyes. 

Leaves. Turning and rippling as they turned. Branches lacing overhead like fingers.

The grass rustled at her side and she turned her head, watched as James came stumbling through, grinning at having found her.

She held up her arms and he came crashing through the grass, running for her. He fell over her chest and she cradled him, laughing when he squirmed with happiness against her.

“Mama,” he said with not a little triumph, embracing her with sweaty limbs-

and a kiss.

On the mouth. Kate let out a breath of surprise, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him back. “Thank you, baby. What a wonderful kiss.”

James ducked his head with that shy smile and laid down on her shoulder, his body half off of her so that his bare feet were in the grass. She slowly rubbed his back, entirely melted by his sweet embrace.

She cradled the back of his head, her fingers combing the thin and damp hair at his neck, nudging her cheek against him. He wriggled in response, but apparently he was too worn out from running around to move.

Oh, afternoon nap. That’s why.

“You tired, baby?” she said softly. “You and Wyatt been playing so hard. You have fun?”

He hummed something against her shoulder, but his eyes were drooping. He fisted her shirt and shuddered, a kind of full-body surrender to the inevitable. And then he was asleep. Just that fast.

“Oh, wow,” she smiled. Her fingers traced slow designs on his back, smoothing down his shirt and tugging his little jeans up over his diaper. James didn’t move. She thought he might even be drooling on her shoulder, but she couldn’t tell, his warmth sweating against her.

The grass whispered again and she glanced to the side, saw Castle coming through the grass. Behind him was Colin carrying Wyatt, close enough now that she could see them above the thin, brown blades of the high weeds, and the brothers came and sat down with her.

Colin at her feet, Castle at her ribs.

She poked Castle’s thigh and he winked at her, sat back with his hands planted behind him and bracing his weight. She expected him to be chewing on a blade of grass or a stalk of wheat, but instead he tilted his head and took a breath of the clean air.

“Good out here, isn’t it?” he said to her. Not looking.

“Mm-hm,” she gave back. “James thinks so. Wyatt asleep too?” She glanced down to Colin and he lowered an arm, revealing the boy’s slack mouth and golden-tinged lashes against his cheeks. 

“Post-lunch coma,” Colin said. “You feel like sleeping too?”

“No,” she sighed. “Just feel good.”

Castle’s eyes darted to hers and she smiled, but at the same time, she wanted to sit up. She didn’t want to be lying down even if they weren’t standing over her.

“Help me up?” she murmured.

Castle sat forward immediately and reached for James, easing the boy off of her shoulder with two broad hands. She hooked an arm at Castle’s thigh and leveraged herself up, leaned against him so she watch James as he resettled.

The boy’s eyes came open, a crest of something like anxiety until he found her, and then he blinked and smiled and fell back to sleep. 

Kate laid her head to Castle’s shoulder and threaded her arm through his, her breasts pressed to his hard lines. 

“Kids are sacked out,” Colin said.

“Is that a hint?” she said, watching him.

Castle shifted. “We wanted to talk.” He cleared his throat but she didn’t move from him. She figured they had a lot of conversations ahead of them.

Colin was the one who started, the breeze ruffling his hair so that it spoiled his stern effect. “Kate, did you happen to see a lot of people at the facility?” 

She smiled, but it wasn’t because of the topic, and it wasn’t because Colin looked like a little kid even as he held Wyatt, it was just the way Castle shifted against her, clearly not happy that they had to ask.

Castle didn’t want her to have to think about; he didn’t want her to have to go back there, even in her head.

But she didn’t mind. They were all dead. “If Castle kept accurate count of the dead, then you got them all.”

“I did,” he said gravely. “And Colin had the security agents. But we meant... doctors, people in charge.”

She sighed. “You mean other than Black.”

“Yes,” Colin said, his voice glinting like a blade. She could see it in him, how he wanted to do more; he wanted there to be more.

“Um. Yeah, a few. An older guy, Saber-”

“We got him,” Castle said gravely. “We knew him too.”

She nodded, but she straightened up, sitting on her own now. She picked at strands of grass with her fingers and wrapped the blade around her thumb, untwisted it again. “Those were the only names I knew specifically. But in the three years I was there, I had four trainers in direct contact. One of them is dead. The first one, Mark, he - he was ‘taken care of’, as Black called it. Too friendly.”

“Too friendly-” Colin winced. “To you. Right. The incurable emotional connection.”

Castle rubbed a hand down her back. “Four trainers. One dead. Anyone else?”

“Once I woke too soon in the procedure room. There were two doctors and a nurse I hated; she was working the ultrasound machine.”

“The ultrasound,” Castle mumbled. “Shit. Was that how you knew about this last one?”

She nodded. 

“Two doctors and a nurse. Did we get them?”

“I don’t know about the doctors. They were rotated in and out. The nurse was on-site.”

“Yeah, that’s part of what we need to know,” Colin told her. “How many docs did you ever see, docs that might be able to continue the program elsewhere? How easy would it be to set up a whole new facility?”

She sucked in a harsh breath, stunned at the thought that it might still be going on somewhere.

“We won’t let it happen, Kate.” Castle rubbed her back and brought his hand to her knee, squeezing. “So everything you can tell us about the doctors-”

“Of course,” she said, nodding hard. “I can describe them down to their damn moles.”

\-----

She shredded blades of grass while she talked, relentlessly, single-minded. Castle had James in his arms as the boy slept, the trees whispering overhead, the crickets popping suddenly with a whirring click to the next stalk.

Castle was keeping track of every detail in his head. She had told them how she’d been trained at first, mixed martial arts and self-defense, no weapons, just excruciating physical sessions that had left her wiped. She’d been given ‘supplements’ - meaning the program had started from the beginning - but she had only seen Saber during that first year.

Mark, her first trainer, had been ‘shipped out’, she’d been told. Too friendly. She knew Mark particularly well, the dimensions of his body, the way he dropped his shoulder when he attacked, and how he used it to put his opponents off their game, luring them into a false sense of his expectations. 

All good things, but it was the Marine tattoo that would be their best bet.

Trainers two, three, and four were in and out, no real schedule, no way of betting on one or another. She had killed one of them. 

“I don’t-” she shrugged and the blade of grass peeled into four pieces under her thumb nail. “Don’t even know what his name was. Black was more careful about these guys. They were completely faceless, bland, no conversation other than instruction.”

Castle glanced to Colin and his brother nodded; hey had enough to figure it out. She’d described them all physically, and between the two of them, they could go through their father’s favorite pets, find the most likely candidates and see if she could pick them out.

“That takes care of the trainers and docs the first year,” Colin said. He was holding Wyatt like a baby, a disconcerting picture as he pushed Kate to remember.

“Okay, yeah,” Kate said, nodding. “After I broke his neck, I was taken back to my room by two of the staff. The on-site staff, whom you probably got that night.”

“Black usually ran his facilities like compounds. No changing of the guards, no turnover. So if you’d seen them within the last few weeks, they’d have still been there that night.” Castle shifted forward a little to see Kate’s face. She was nodding to his words.

“I saw them. Recently, I mean.”

“All right. So you were sent back to your room like a bad girl,” Colin prompted. “And then?”

“And then nothing. No one came. Food through the slot. So I didn’t eat for two weeks, and they intubated me. Came in with four of their guys, I got two of them, killed one-”

“Why the sudden murderous rage?” Colin smirked.

Kate stiffened, darting her eyes to Castle and then away again. “Um.” She plucked another strand of grass and let out a breath. “Proving a point.”

“Ah,” Colin muttered, giving Castle a look.

Yeah, he knew. Black. Their father had always been able to push every damn button so that they’d craved his attention, his approval.

“Who did you kill, Kate?” he asked, knowing somehow that she needed the question.

“I didn’t really mean to. The trainer, I had, yeah, because he was an asshole to me, and was trying to - to dominate me, breathing in my ear all these-” Kate shut herself up, sharply shaking her head, and Castle tried not to grind James’s bones to dust with the rage clawing at him.

Colin cleared his throat and the tension was broken, just like that. But Castle didn’t think he’d ever forget the flash of disgust on her face, the sound of her voice twisted as she’d said breathing in my ear. Pinning her, rolling on top of her to put his mouth-

Fuck.

Fuck, he couldn’t lose it. He had to be calm during debrief or he’d get nothing clear, and he’d ruin whatever Colin could glimpse (if Colin even could with Kate; it wasn’t like he got pictures in his head). Damn.

Take a breath. Come back to it.

“Four guys held you down,” he said. “Put a tube down your throat. Force feeding.”

She nodded. “Three guys held me down, technically. I killed Jasper. I - no, I mean, I don’t know his real name. I just called him that. But... I didn’t mean to kick him so hard. I think I was just - panicking. I panicked.”

Because she’d killed her trainer to prove herself to Black and then... then she’d gotten his attention alright. No wonder she’d been afraid.

“I could hear his head hit the corner of the door frame. The bone crunching.”

Castle shifted his arm and touched her back. She jumped, startled by even that light of a gesture, but she shot him a grateful smile. 

“Kate, you know that anything you did to protect yourself in that place-”

“Don’t, Castle,” she sighed, closing her eyes. “Just don’t.”

He grimaced, glancing to his brother, but Colin was inscrutable. He didn’t know what to do about that, whether it meant Kate was going to be fine or if Colin just didn’t want him to know.

“The three of them were on-site staff. Regulars. I’d come to think of them as the overnight guys, but I can’t be sure of that. The schedules were always switched up on me so that I couldn’t keep track. Saber came in, talked to me while they poured nutrients down the tube.”

“Only Saber?” Colin asked.

She nodded. “Only Saber. He said not to worry. I had a special assignment. Just for me, because I was so strong...”

“And then-”

“Shut up, Col,” Castle said sharply, his hand splayed at her back. Too much. This was too much; he could feel it coming off of her in waves, revulsion and terror and-

“I’m fine, Castle,” she muttered. “And then it started. The injections, which I guess were hormone injections or something, while the IV was almost a daily thing. Usually just nurses. But. There were...” She closed her eyes and he saw she was counting in her head. “Two doctors I saw regularly. Actually laid eyes on. But the two during the ultrasound? Those were two guys I’d never seen before. So... there could be more.”

There could be more.

“I don’t know. I can’t - if you had photos,” she choked out, “I’d know them. But I all I can say is. Mostly white guys. One black guy. No women but for the nurses. Saber was the oldest, but they were all about Black’s age. Two were about late thirties, there towards the last. Oh, one of them I saw down the hall right before the ultrasound.”

Kate was frowning, glancing down at her hands. The crease in her forehead deepened and she reached up, rubbing at her nose.

“Kate?”

“Just-” She shivered and shook her head. “Weird feeling. I don’t know. Maybe I’d seen him before? I don’t know. Just once, down the hall. He was wearing a lab coat and these little black square glasses-”

“Square glasses?” Colin said sharply.

Castle’s stomach flipped. “No,” he croaked, glancing to his brother.

Colin opened his mouth, shut it, the same horror on his brother’s face that was in Castle’s soul.

Alex wore black square glasses when he was working in the lab. With the blood samples. Alex-

Kate shivered. “I only saw him once. I don’t know - they had me knocked out for every little procedure. I would wake up and check for incision sites, but it wasn’t that, wasn’t ever surgery, that I could tell. Just... shit. Just knocking me out to knock me up. God.”

Castle swallowed, but the stone in his gut only sharpened, churning his insides. James was heavily asleep in his lap, oblivious, but Castle couldn’t help wondering.

Had Alex been there?

\-----

Castle shifted James to his shoulder and turned to look at Colin. His brother walked in the French doors behind him, Wyatt still carried like a baby in his arms, but Castle could no longer see Kate through the overgrown grass. They had left her alone outside, her request, but he didn’t like it. He was going to put the kids down to sleep and come right back out here.

“Leave her alone,” Colin said. “We have things to talk about.”

“Alex,” Castle growled and turned away, heading through the living room to the hall that led to his room. 

“And the rest of it,” his brother said, coming up behind him. They mounted the stone steps at the same time, but Castle’s churning frustration pushed him up faster.

“If Alex fucking-”

“We don’t know that,” Colin said, following him over the baby gate and into the room. “Actually, we know very little.”

“What are you talking about?” Castle muttered. Two long strides across the room and he lowered James into the baby bed, had to grit his teeth to keep from punch a wall. Alex. The fucking-

“She’s not a trusted source,” Colin said.

“What the fuck. She was in that place for three years, Col. Not a trusted-”

“She was all over the place. We got the first year out of her cleanly, and then she’s jumping from Saber to two guys to an ultrasound she woke up for there at the very end. No. Not a good source of reliable intel.”

Castle glared at him, but he had heard it in her voice, felt it in her body just sitting beside him, that tension, that choked up resistance to speaking the words. “She wasn’t lying.”

“Didn’t say that. I’m just saying it’s not a complete picture.” Colin lowered Wyatt to the mattress and turned back to Castle. “We need her to slow it down, unravel it piece by piece. Think about it in a straight line.”

“She doesn’t want to think about it,” Castle growled. “She’s spent the last few years specifically not thinking about it. So back off.”

“I can’t. You heard her out there,” Colin said quietly. “She said she counted two. Two docs. And then two different ones that time she was conscious. But fuck, Castle, there had to have been four, six, eight of them. One was black, she says, no women, she says, all men - okay, fine, but if one was black then why didn’t she say a black guy and a white guy? No, there had to have been more than that. She just can’t look straight at it.”

“Would you?” he hissed. “Do you even blame her?”

“No, don’t blame her for avoiding it, even unintentionally. But we have to know.” Colin gripped him by the shoulders, shoved him towards the stairs once more. “If any of those docs are out there, working on this thing. If they know about her, that she’s gone, been liberated. Castle. How long you think she’s got before they-”

“I know,” Castle gulped. “I know. I won’t let her be taken again.”

“But she can’t live inside a castle forever,” Colin said, shaking his head. “Don’t imprison her here too.”

Castle scrubbed his hand down his face. “I’ll ask her. I’ll get her to talk about it. I will.”

“Good. You need help, you call me. Meanwhile, I’m gonna go hunting for some records, see what I can dig up in the way of corroborating evidence. I’ll text you photos of our usual suspects for her to ID.”

Castle nodded. “And Alex.”

Colin set his jaw, eyes glittering. “We do it right, Castle. It’s always been you and me, you know that. You know Alex and Ben did shit to help us.”

“But they called about the pedialyte. And I texted Alex about the heart stuff and he was helpful. He didn’t call the Department of Defense on us either.”

“No, but he didn’t stop this, did he? And if he was there, inside that facility, then his name goes on our list.”

Castle’s guts churned, but if Alex had done that to Kate. If Alex had seen her down the hall, had been part of those experiments-

“We’ll build our damn case,” Colin told him, nudging him for the stairs. “And then we’ll see how he pleads.”

“We’re not executioners,” Castle said, his heart hollow. “I’m not passing judgment on a bunch of idiots who were as conned by Black as we were.”

“I’m not saying we pass judgment. I’m saying we make a list of everyone who might want to keep experimenting on your girl, and we deal with them. Everyone Black had in his power, who might see a nice vacuum ready for them to step right into.”

“And Alex...” Castle shook his head, trudging down the stone steps and back into his bedroom. 

“We’ll deal with Alex.”

“If it was him.”

“Don’t be naive, Castle.”

He wasn’t; he didn’t think so anyway. He just wanted his brother to have been a better man than that.

He wanted them all to have been better men.

But there was no changing the past.

\-----

Kate Beckett twisted the blade around her thumb, tighter, tighter, until it burst at its seams and unravelled. She palmed it and cropped another few blades, the grass thin and silky between her fingers before she twisted it too in a rope around her thumb.

Again and again.

Kate Beckett but not Kate Beckett.

Freshman year of college she had told Jeremy, a senior from Indiana, call me Katherine, and he had, and they’d had a handful of dates where his hot, sweating palm had pushed under her bra and stroked her nipple and she’d thought Katherine would do that, kiss this nineteen year old guy with her tongue so he’d squeeze a little harder.

She hadn’t been Becks, then; she hadn’t been Maddie’s rival, dragging Gabe off the trail during cross country practice to put her hands in his shorts and make him spurt before she’d ever even gotten a promised date to junior prom. Maddie taunting her, I had Dave Levy on his knees and unbuttoning my pants before you even-

Katherine Beckett? the Western Civ professor had intoned from his perch near the overhead projector, reading her name from his roster as he tried to find her face over the bright light of the beam. She’d waved three fingers at him and felt like Sloane from Ferris Bueller, chic, sophisticated, better than the rest. Being K-Becks had never felt like being Katherine Beckett.

What did Kate feel like?

She supposed the Beckett was gone. 

Another blade burst and she mechanically tucked it under her fingers, into her palm, her nails stained with chlorophyll. Another three loops around her thumb, the grass itching some unseen break in her skin.

No, Beckett wasn’t gone. She felt that woman whisper terrible things in her ear hurt him, make him feel what you feel. Push. Lash out. How easy it is to snap a neck. Beckett was her older sister, her protector, and sometimes so eerily not herself that she really did wonder if the trauma had split her personality.

She’d read Sybil in Psych her senior year of high school, watched the movie with Maddie in her friend’s room, both of them shoulder to shoulder on the bed with the covers pulled up and the tension twisting like horror. Multiple personalities. Never knowing who had control.

Beckett wasn’t gone, but she was Beckett. She couldn’t dissociate herself now, not after the things she’d done.

Trainer Number Four. Four, she had named him, spoken his not-given name under her breath as she did pull-ups on the bar, hissing the number to dehumanize him, to do the job Black was teaching her to do.

I can be your killer; I will be. Give me a chance.

She had been on the bar, full extension, her feet crossed behind her and slightly tucked up, her hands straining and slippery with sweat, her shirt rucked up her stomach from the exertion. She had been flexed to pull up and Trainer Number Four had come through the far door, fixed his eyes on the skin exposed by askew shirt.

Four had strolled across the gym space, clear intent in his eyes, touch you touch you feel you and she had snapped her body up into a ball, pulling up on the bar, and swung back down-

snapping out-

wrapping her legs around his neck-

and twisted.

Flipped off the bar. The momentum carrying his neck around in directions it ought not go. Spine severed. Death instantaneous.

One half-choked breath of surprise. He had not even raised his hands to her thighs.

He had not even touched her.

Beckett had proved herself in that swing, settling easily on her feet, blood thrumming through her body like power, power, power, and she had stood erect on the mat like a gymnast expecting perfect tens.

Met with silence. The click-snuff of the PA system going offline. 

Sometime he says to her, good job, nice form, keep your eyes on your opponent. Sometimes the mic is open but he says nothing and those are the days she fights harder, better, faster, waiting for his word.

Silence.

She had stood. She had stood for hours, Four dead at her feet.

And then they had come to take her.

“Kate?”

Kate spread her hands out and released the shredded blades back to the earth. Lifted her eyes to the man coming through the French doors.

Castle stopped a few feet from her and put his hands on his hips, glanced out past her towards some distance she didn’t know. “Want to walk down to the creek with me?”

She pressed her green-damp palms to her thighs to dry them and shifted to stand. He waited, not offering help, and she started down the gentle slope for the river. 

Well, he persisted in calling it a creek, but river it was, swollen up normally dry banks to lick at the trunks of sentinel trees. Kate felt Castle coming up at her back like high tide, and then his hand settling low on her waist, watermark.

“Cooler down here,” he murmured. His breathing was even, unhurried, while hers matched it. She had not been out of breath or heart-skipping since last night. 

Trauma. Panic. Anxiety.

She shredded blades of grass instead. Maybe the shock of river water would keep her going.

Castle sat down on the bank and patted the spot beside him, but she merely bent over and pushed off her shoes, the pair she’d bought alone at the outlet mall, proud of having thought of them, proud of having bought them.

Katie that day, most likely. Unwilling to stay in daddy’s shadow, but always coming back.

She peeled off her socks and tossed them at Castle’s face, stepped through cool grass and over crumbling sticks, misshapen acorns, for the stream.

Who was the woman that longed to cup her breasts and offer them up? Who tingled between her legs when he laid on top of her, who parted her thighs and burned with the need to be rammed into, damn the damage, heedless of cost, inviting the pain?

“Kate,” he called, breath of laughter as he caught her wrist.

But not to hold her back; he walked down with her into the water, stepping from grass to mud to shockingly slippery rock, his bare toes inelegant and crooked, little dark hairs waving in the current.

She was breathing cold, cold seeping into her blood and traveling up from her feet to kick start her heart. She choked a laugh and caught her breath, caught his eyes.

They laughed together, that shocked, too-cold laughter that burst like bubbles out of their lips. He felt it too, though he seemed to be insensate to most weather. This he felt. She could see it on his face, a mirror of hers.

“Damn thing must be filled with glacier run-off,” he said, teeth almost chattering. “Fucking hell, what an idea, Kate Beckett.”

She took both his hands in hers by hooking their thumbs and pinky fingers, lacing the middle digits. He was letting chills wrack his frame, allowing himself to feel it, she thought, and just for the excuse of stepping in closer to her.

She allowed it herself, allowed to feel it, and bumped her hips into his so that their thighs brushed, bodies brushed, her breasts against his chest through t-shirt cotton.

He breathed and she let hers go. He hummed out pleasure and she inhaled. The water tickled and swirled like tiny fish kissing her skin, but when she glanced into the light-refracted currents, there was nothing.

Moss under her soles, pliant at her toes where she tried to grip the rock. Her lower calves were solid blocks, numbed by cold, the skin just below her knees gasping and flinching as the icy water licked.

The light came in green around his body, shadowed his skin before her. His ears glowed at the tips, red or pink, coral, while his eyes held the sky.

“Touch me,” she murmured, barely over the babble of water on rock.

He unhooked their fingers and grazed his knuckles at her hip, inward to the waistband of her shorts. She’d meant anywhere, she’d meant right here, and he went for that one, perfect place, slipping his fingers in her underwear and pressing against her sex.

She moaned, flooded with heat, marooned by cold, listing into his body like the sway of current.

“I love to touch you.” His fingers eased those lips apart, skirted the sensitive places. “I’m going to reclaim all the places, the moment we can. Take you right back here. Take you.”

“Yes,” she breathed, letting her hips rock lazily against him. Urgency banked, burned low. Her eyes opened.

He looked at her like the whole world, like she’d looked at Four when she’d known I’m going to do it.

He was going to do it, even if it wasn’t smart or in his best interest, even if she was damaged and hurtful and most likely all broken pieces. He was going to do it.

He was going to love her.

She slid her arm around his neck and inched up on her toes on that slippery rock, such a precarious foundation, and she hung on to him, body to his, and kissed him while he touched her.

Slowly. Barely. 

But he made her feel.

He made her burn.

\-----

He had to be careful.

With his fingers drenched in her honey, and her hips rocking slowly against his hand, and her body heavy against his, draped along every line of him, he had to be careful.

Be careful with her.

He held the back of her head in the cradle of his palm and coasted his fingers between her legs, the heat of Kate’s sex burning through him while the water rushed bracingly cold and shocking around his legs.

He tilted his head and kissed her jaw. Brushing lightly. She moaned and gripped his shirt at his back, hanging on to him. Giving over to him. He was so in love with her. How generous she was with her body, her response, how she’d sat in the grass and shredded it between her fingers and yet he’d held out a hand and she’d stood and brought him here and touched him.

He caressed the soft, wet places in her sex, the wonderful secrets of her body, the heat. His erection pulsed in response to that heat, and he nudged his mouth down to hers for another kiss.

She slid her tongue inside, mimicked the play of his fingers with her kiss. Her hum was hungry, but low-throated; she was finding a rhythm with him. He let them get lost in the kiss, fingers petting her down, easing. She parted with that wet sound of once-sealed lips, her mouth open as she breathed against him. 

“You’re very good at this,” she husked.

“Am I?” He withdrew his fingers slowly, trying to keep as much of her cream in his hand as he could. Her underwear snapped and she shivered. “Never wanted someone as much as I want you.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” she chuckled. “You’ve got skills, Castle.”

“Skills are less than nothing when there’s no heart. And yours is throbbing between your legs, baby.” He curled his fingers up and out of her pants, drew his hand up to her mouth. “Taste it.”

She darted her tongue out and licked along his thumb, biting the fleshy part with her teeth while her eyes stayed intently on his. He watched with heavy-lidded arousal, and she dipped her chin down to the cup of his palm, suckled at his fingers.

He groaned, still gripping the back of her neck, flushed hot down to his cock. He ached to be inside her, though he knew he had a long wait ahead of him, ached every damn day to meet her hips flush and find himself buried to the root in all of that alluring, flowering heat.

She sucked noisily at his fingers and he pressed down on her tongue in response. Her eyes flicked up to him, a smirk of her lips around his fingers, and he withdrew, painting a wet trail down her neck to the top of her shirt.

She was shimmying out of her shorts.

“What are you doing?” he rasped.

“Don’t want to get these wet.” She lifted one foot, toes blue and dripping water, stepped out of the leg of her shorts, and then the other, doing the same. He just watched, because he couldn’t fathom getting naked in the middle of the river, but she tossed her shorts to the bank.

“Kate-”

Her hand cupped his crotch, squeezing. “I need to cool off. And so do you.”

He blinked, staring down at her, and then she eased down to her knees in the river.

“Kate!” He bent over to try to catch her, but she avoided his grip, used his hands instead to steady herself on the rock they were stranded on in the middle of the current. He gripped her tightly, but she closed her eyes as the water swam up her thighs.

He could imagine it tickling between her legs, little licks and eddies, and he was so fucking jealous of the river in that moment. He wanted to be touching her.

“Don’t you dare get off on this,” he growled.

She laughed, her eyes flying open. “Oh, baby, doesn’t hold a candle to you. I promise.”

“Pelvis rest, Kate-”

“Hush,” she murmured. Her fingers were at his fly and tripping open the button of his shorts, already unzipping him. “This is what I’m down here to do.”

She rubbed her knuckles roughly against his cock and he groaned, trembling with the effort of standing still. Kate found the panel of his boxer briefs and slid her hand inside, untangled his rising cock from the fabric, exposing him in the cool air below the trees.

He reached down and caught her wrists, trying to breathe through the sensation of open air on his cock and her breathing, her mouth so close. “Kate, sweetheart. I...”

“What do you like best, Castle?”

“I... just don’t - more than you can take, if it’s-”

“You’re fairly large, yes,” she chuckled. “But baby, I think I can take it.”

He was blushing. Pink to the tip of his ears. He hadn’t meant it like that, but now the image of his cock rammed into her mouth and down her throat burned so clearly in his mind’s eye that he was shifting in the water.

“Kate.”

“Tell me how you like it best,” she said, stroking her palm along the underside of his shaft. “I want to know.”

“I like - like what you do.” He was having trouble breathing, she was so close to his cock. Her lips so damn close.

“What do I do that you like?”

“All of it,” he choked. “You surprise me.”

“You like to be surprised?”

“I like you,” he said, still gripping her by the wrists. He stared down at her, on her knees in a river and caressing his thighs in slow, even strokes with the tips of her blunt nails even as he hung on to her.

“I am pretty good at this,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him. “Or so all the high school boys would say. But Castle, high school boys don’t know the first thing about what you do, what we’ve done together. So tell me-”

“I don’t want you to think about high school boys,” he growled.

She smirked up at him, and he felt his cheeks flush hotly again. Damn, she just - got to him. In every way.

“I like your hand curled around me,” he said instead, grinding his teeth as she did it immediately. “And when you kiss me there, these little, delicate kisses. Rips my guts out.”

Her lips brushed a tease down his shaft.

He growled and had to work to keep himself standing there, aching so fucking badly to fuck her. In anyway possible. Fuck her sex, her ass, her mouth. Fuck, he was base and crude when it got to this, and yet she was only teasing her lips in kisses along his shaft.

“Is that all?”

“In your mouth,” he growled, demanding. “Fuck. Kate. I want to be in your mouth. I want to fuck your mouth-”

She swallowed his cock.

He cursed and gripped her wrists, feeling her as she braced herself against his thigh, as her other hand fondled his balls. He was tight already, tightened up in his scrotum so that he would come at any moment. He could barely see through the slits of his eyes, barely breathe through the lust gripping his lungs.

She suckled on his shaft as she bobbed her head, and he had a passing, throwaway thought at least she has no idea what fucking her mouth looks like, at least she’s doing the fucking. And even that, her somehow innocent demands in the face of his erection - literally - sent him throbbing inside those wet, hot cheeks.

She moaned around him, her hips dancing in the air. He released one of her wrists and palmed the side of her head, fingers tangling in her soft hair. She sucked on his cock as she dipped lower, her lips and nose in his pubic hair before she dragged her wet mouth back up to his head again.

He watched her work, keeping his hips locked in place only with the sobering image of her grass-stained fingers against his balls. How she had looked sitting in the grass, twisting the blades around and around, shredding them. How her face had gone dead, her eyes.

She was here now, with him, she was moaning around his cock in her mouth. She was heat and wet, close flesh, and she was tonguing the head of his erection with these flicks that drove him insane.

“Kate,” he hissed.

His hand in her hair tightened; he was trying very hard not to fuck her mouth, oh fuck.

“Kate, Kate-”

She swirled her tongue around him and he groaned, pulsing with need, feeling his orgasm coil around the base of his cock. His head fell back and he stared up at the leaves winking against the too-bright summer sky, the rage entwining now with his lust and being dragged up out of his cock.

Kate released him, licked the pre-cum beading on his tip, her nose nuzzling into his cock.

“Come in my mouth,” she murmured in her kiss.

“Fuck,” he choked. Even as she went down on him, deeply, and he couldn’t stop it. His hand in her hair clutched and pulled her face against him, and he thrust once with a cry into the green shadows, one sharp thrust that put his cock down her throat.

She gagged on him and swallowed fiercely, and he orgasmed with a roar that shook the river.

\-----


	24. Chapter 24

The aftermath of a blow job had always been messy and disgusting. The three times she’d done it before Castle anyway. Three? Already, she had surpassed her own record with Castle alone, and she didn’t see it coming to an end.

But this wasn’t disgusting. His come down her throat, overflowing her mouth even as she worked to swallow. It felt alive. Messy, yes, but he’d made that into a part of the whole experience from the beginning, suckling his come from her body or swiping his fingers through it as he looked at her like the world and the heavens included.

She licked his cock as it went soft, parting her lips to let it fall into her messy hands. She licked the ring of his seed from her fingers, the head of his cock, closing her eyes to the dark musk of his scent. His hands knocked clumsily into her cheeks, brushed her neck, tangled in her hair as he tried to help, or maybe just touch, and she kept having to turn her head to avoid his wide palms, his thick fingers, kissing the skin he bumped against her.

She cast a last pull down his shaft to make sure he was clean and he grunted, and though she felt that heat rise in him again, she tucked him back into his boxers. They were stained, and she felt the same stains drying against her skin at her collarbones where it had escaped and run down.

Rick Castle had come in her moth. Down her throat. And now she understood a little more clearly what he’d meant when he’d blurted out fuck your mouth and that was definitely something they were coming back to later. 

She had mastery over him in a way he hadn’t meant to give anyone; she knew that much. And yet he gave it to her so freely, easily, like it was matter of fact. 

His hands finally found their strength and curled under her arms, trying to lift her to her feet.

Her legs refused to work, so numbed by the icy water that she couldn’t feel them. She’d thought it would be better that way, but now she stumbled against her own dead feet and fell against him, forced to lean on him, her own body unwilling to carry her.

Shipwrecked on his shore.

He wrapped his arms around her, swept behind her knees, and lifted her out of the water. She sucked a breath of surprise, water cascading from her legs and off her feet, and Castle carried her out of the river.

He climbed the bank and set her on her feet beside her shorts, hanging onto her as her knees collapsed. His grin was wide and still loopy, and he lifted a hand between them and skated down her throat, fingering the come drying at her clavicles.

His eyes were so blue, so alive, and it always surprised her, the color that radiated warmth rather than cold. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said, smiling back at him. The breeze snaked cool fingers along the backs of her thighs and she shivered. “I liked that.”

“Mmm, me too.” His kiss landed above her cheek, his tongue exploring the line of her bones. “Really, really liked that. Being inside you.”

Her mouth wasn’t exactly being inside, but he didn’t know any better. Hell, she didn’t know any better, but she wasn’t telling him that. “Water’s cold,” she said, stupidly, not sure what to say.

His fingers dragged down her shirt to rest between her breasts, thumb rubbing slow circles. “Let me warm you up?”

She nodded, and he withdrew from under her shirt, lifted her in his arms again. He carried her up into a patch of sunlight, sat her down on the thick, luxuriant grass. She leaned back on her hands and watched as he straightened her legs before her, though her skin was numb enough that she couldn’t feel him.

He began by rubbing her toes between his palms, hard, briskly, and she giggled as the force of him shook her whole body.

He grinned back and worked at her toes until they began to tingle, chafed by his hands, and then he put one foot in his lap and picked up the other, concentrating solely on it. He dug his thumb into her sole and she cried out, arching, falling to her back in the grass as he ruthlessly knuckled her foot.

“Fuck,” she breathed, opening her eyes to the sky. Bright sunlight filled her vision, laced in the edges with leaves. “Fuck, you’re good at this too. Damn it.”

He laughed, that wonderful laughter that took over his body, and so she tilted her head down to look at him. How blue his eyes were on her. Colors rich and teeming with life. Not just blue. Blue was so inadequate for what they were. All colors.

He ground his knuckles into her foot and she groaned, body arching in response once more, faint twinges in her womb every time it hurt. So good.

She wondered if she could come like this. She fucking hoped not because this she was not going to stop. No. “Harder.”

He laughed again but obeyed, working her foot between his hands like a meat grinder, and it was exactly what she needed. It fucking hurt, but it was so damn good. Her cunt twitched with every stretch of her muscles.

He switched foots, and now her toes glowed pink and warm against his crossed legs. She curled down to touch his crotch, and he lifted an eyebrow at her, made her laugh in response.

But she laid back down and watched the wide open sky as he massaged her other foot, her knee jerking only a few times (he kept a tight grip on her heel anyway, and held her there despite the twitches and flinches of her body). His thumb pressed into the hard knots under the ball of her foot, and his knuckles crunched the tendons smooth.

He laid her foot down in his lap and now cradled both of them, one in each hand, massaging the backs of her calves. She sighed and closed her eyes, draped her arm over her face to block the intensity of the light.

In the dark shelter of her arm, she felt his hands on her, his body close, felt the sway of the earth towards its rotation. In her ears the rustle of grass and the whisper of leaves from overhead, and still his hands inched up the backs of her legs, massaging her calves.

She drifted. 

In and out on the susurration of the river just down the bank.

And then his body laid over hers.

Kate lowered her arm, opening her eyes to him. The heavy weight of his body over her was grounding, stabilizing, giving her exactly what she needed. He braced himself on his elbows and a knee, but she had most of him.

“Can I say thank you?” he murmured, dipping his mouth to the corner of her eye. She snaked her arm around his neck and curled it around his head, fingers combing through his hair.

“For what?”

“For all you give,” he husked. “How you give. Blows me away.” 

She snorted a laugh and he laughed back, both of them catching the unintentional pun. His teeth caught her jaw even as he was chuckling so that she felt those vibrations down to her bones.

“That too, Beckett. Shut up.”

She laughed harder, out of breath the way he crushed her down in the grass. “I like blowing you away. Don’t thank me.”

His body pressed down into hers, a little thrust, a warning or a promise, she had no idea. She liked that too. She wondered what it would be like with him, how he’d feel inside her, and she ached for it.

“Can’t you just - just - push inside me?” she whispered. “Please? I’ll stay so still. I’ll be still, Castle-”

“Don’t ask me to hurt you,” he sighed. His lips ghosted her cheek, but he went down on his elbows and rolled her to his chest as he laid on his back.

She sighed in response and curled her arm around him, brushing her fingers over his chest, back and forth.

“No,” he said, a rumble under her ear. “Forget I said that. Ask me. Because there are some hurts I’d give you.”

Kate shivered, drawing a knee up over his thigh, pressing closer.

“For you,” he said, curling his arm tighter around her shoulders. “I’d do - anything. Anything, Kate.”

\-----

She felt good here.

The sunlight had spread across her back and warmed her shoulders, her hair. A warm haze of enveloped them, bits of grass and pollen drifting in the air, ringing their heads and making the light glint and beam. Motes caught in her lashes, rose above Castle’s chest, drifted upward towards the leaves.

Windborne seeds floated aloft. Her body rose and fell on his breath, her heart took up his rhythm.

His fingers rubbed slowly at her shoulder where he held her, the soporific slow drag of sensation across her skin. She nudged her nose down into the crease of his arm, subtly inhaled the scent of him. 

“You’re not even sweating,” she mumbled, tightening her arm at his waist in a squeeze. 

“No. Are you too hot?”

“No, I mean-” She sighed and dusted her fingers under his shirt, rubbing slowly. “Tell me about the elixir? What it does. To you.”

“Oh.” Such a final sound, that oh from him. Disappointment? Maybe just sinking back into the mire. The usual. “Me.”

“If you don’t want-”

“I don’t mind,” he said quickly. “Not at all. Anything, Kate.”

She laid her palm to his bare side, his skin so warm it seemed to seal them together at his rib. Like Adam and Eve, alone in the castle Eden. She stayed quiet, let him go about naming the beasts as they came.

“How much do you know about blood chemistry?”

“Not a lot,” she admitted. “Some? Red blood cells carry oxygen, white are the immune system.”

“Yes, and platelets - which we call colorless.”

“Mm, okay. Three kinds.” She grinned to herself, unable to help it, and he squeezed her shoulder in askance. She giggled and lifted her head to look at him. “No, not at you. Just, okay a little bit. Professor Castle.”

“Shut up. You already said I was too old for you-”

“No, never,” she hummed, sliding her palm down to rest below his belly, just above the heat of his groin. “I like it. Private lessons, baby. So platelets?”

“Right,” he muttered. “Well, those three are usually formed by red bone marrow. We also have yellow marrow, and some forms of white blood cells are made by the yellow. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Well, in me and my brothers, the yellow marrow takes over white blood cell production, so that the red bone marrow can make - altered red blood cells. Bones carry marrow and deep in the marrow lie stem cells - which theoretically can make any kind of cell you need - and so the elixir alters the triggers for your stem cells, giving us these highly-specialized blood cells.”

Kate was quiet, trying to absorb the meaning of his information. His red marrow did a very specific job, and the yellow took over where the red was slacking - or at least, that was what she’d heard.

“With me?” he murmured.

“Yeah.”

“In children, red marrow is practically everywhere - even inside their little fingers. And as kids age, normal hematopoietic bone marrow is replaced by the more fatty, yellow marrow. Which, of course, is necessary for fat, bone, and cartilage production. You want your red marrow to be concentrated in your pelvis and sternum, right? Otherwise you’re producing an overabundance of red blood cells and things go wrong.”

“But not you.”

“Not me,” he sighed. “My ratio - which is known as bone marrow cellularity - is almost one to one. My long bones of the femur still contain red marrow.”

“Which means you produce less fat,” she growled, nipping the flex of his pec with her teeth.

He chuckled and caught the back of her head, fingers tangling. “Not like that. It’s not that kind of fat. But Alex and Ben - they have trouble healing from broken bones, sometimes not completely, sometimes with noticeable impairment. I don’t know if our father just managed to get lucky with mine and Colin’s, but our ratio is sustainable.”

“More than sustainable, I’d say,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to the place she’d marked. Thinking about Alex and Ben whose father’s experiments had given them such insurmountable odds.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “These stem cells that occur in red marrow? That’s what does it.”

“Does what?”

“Everything.”

Somehow, in this beautiful forest with the river at their feet and the sun over their heads and the leaves turning and whispering, that everything was ominous.

“Everything,” she echoed softly.

“It changes me. The red blood cells carry larger oxygen loads, but it’s more than that. The mitochondria... they’re altered in ways my father never could explain. And in some, it’s a contagion that spreads, that altering.”

Kate shivered, curling into his warm body.

“That’s what happened to Dick Coonan,” Castle said gruffly. “Why he went crazy. I’m not saying what he did was at all right, I’m not excusing it, but he was touched.”

“Touched,” she croaked. 

“By this thing. The elixir. What it does, Kate, what it - how it changes things. Those stem cells are the essence of life. The primordial soup. And he found a way to hack into our DNA, to trigger chemical reactions which affect those stem cells.”

“God.”

“Yes, basically.”

She hadn’t meant it as a naming, but he was right. Playing God. Remaking life in his own image.

“But you’re not... not touched,” she said, even as she touched him. Her hand flattened at his groin and she pressed up to his abs as if to make sure of his wholeness. She coasted up his sternum until she felt his heartbeat thumping against his ribs.

“No. I’m not. So far.”

“So far,” she sighed.

“Well, it works, I work. Ben and Alex didn’t come off so lucky. But physical symptoms are harder to mask than mental, emotional.”

“Like Colin.”

“Or me,” he husked. “Blank inside.”

She lifted up, staring at him in the face, her hand pressed over his heart. “No. Not you. There is nothing wrong with your emotions,” she said. She lifted her knee and slid over his hips, straddling him as she stayed close, perched on his chest. “You’re far from blank.”

His hands came to her hips, an anchor for them both. She leaned in and touched her lips to his chin, the prominent ridge of bone. And then his mouth, taking a slow, soft kiss as she reminded him how much was inside him.

And how he filled her too.

\------

There was something about Kate that allowed him to rest, even in the midst of this.

She laid against him, kissing his neck, smudging his lips. He found the skin at her cheek, back to her ear, and she shivered when he tongue the soft spot behind her jaw. He went slowly, laying back so that she could do what she wanted to him, move freely, and she nudged her mouth against his, came in again for a kiss.

Her tongue slipped inside. The heat of her, the wet slide, he couldn’t explain how she did this to him, made his heart pound even while his soul settled. 

When she was here, he wasn’t blank inside. He was roaring with life when she touched him. And yet, he could stay like this all day, the innocence of kissing her lips, tasting her skin, stroking his fingers along her neck and keeping them both drowsy with it. He’d never had that sensation, that emotion, rolling through him.

It was more than protecting her, it was wanting only to be with her. Be with her.

Kate’s fingers dappled at his hip, an elegant, erotic dance. She was tugging him closer, and he happily rolled onto his side to face her, kissing the flush of pink on her neck. Kate hummed and drew her arm around him, sliding her hand up under his shirt.

He palmed the back of her head and went for an aggressive exploration of her exposed skin, pushing aside the blue material of the shirt to find the crease between her breasts. He licked the salt from her pale skin, wondered if she might freckle out here in the sunlight. Castle began inching up the hem of her shirt and she giggled, ticklish somewhere.

He’d have to find that again.

“You believe me?” she said. Her kiss was a rough slide over his cheek, scruff catching the soft skin of her lips. 

“Believe you. Of course.” He slid her shirt up and spanned her ribs with his hand.

She let out a breath. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about. You’ve already forgotten.”

“Maybe. Still believe you.”

“You’re not blank inside,” she whispered. Her hand cupped his crotch as she wound her body around his; she seemed intent on making him accept it. “You feel this?” 

He nodded, breathing shallowly, unable to look away.

“Me too. Didn’t think I’d want to feel much of anything, Castle, for - however long I’d have left to me. But you make me want things. Stupid things, and I ought to know better.”

“Don’t worry about knowing better.”

She lifted an eyebrow. 

“Just - I like you this way. You-” He couldn’t say she made him happy. “I’m... happy.”

Her face transformed, flooding with a terrible anxiety that nonetheless gave way to a shining hope. He could see it. He could see it in her, how much she wanted to want.

Castle combed her hair back and kissed her softly, then he rolled gently on top of her, settling her into the grass with his hips pressing her down.

She stared up at him, and he knew she was in civil war, the old conditioning of the last three years battling this new feeling - and maybe, he hoped, something from her old life that called her to him.

He could be with her. He could be good with her.

Kate let out a breath he could feel escaping her, and then she slid her arms around his neck and brought him down for a kiss.

“You’re happy,” she echoed into his mouth. 

Her tongue slid along his lips and prevented him from emphatically defending them, but he rocked his hips into hers until she groaned and wound her legs around his waist.

“Oh, you’re very happy,” she murmured, smiling against his kiss.

He chuckled and skimmed his fingers against the bare skin of her stomach, went ahead and dragged the shirt off over her head. “Very happy. Oh, yes.”

She wriggled in the grass, grinning up at him, and coasted her fingers down his back, watching him. “Shall we do something about it?”

“No, leave it be,” he murmured. “Let me enjoy it.”

Kate laughed, but she began rucking his shirt up as well, tugging to take it off. He lifted up from her just enough and then they met, bare skin, the silk of her bra rubbing against him. She looked so pleased with herself, rubbing her hands over his chest, around his ribs, down his back. Her eyes were lit up with it, beautiful. Castle framed her face with a hand and lowered his head, kissed her.

He let his hips rock lazily against her, shifting so that the pressure of his body over hers was just off her center. She grazed her nails against his back and gripped his nape, angling him harder into the kiss, mouths and tongues battling now, both of them demanding.

It was so good. Nothing more than this, and it was just so damn good.

\-----

Kate laced her fingers through his and adjusted her shirt as they walked back up the bank towards the house. Castle seemed reluctant, but she could already feel the tug on her conscience; the boys were up.

“Can’t you tell?” she said, interrupting his grumbling.

He paused before the back yard, the mown quadrangle with its paving stones and flowers. She waited with him, brushing the hair back from her face as she looked up into his eyes. He was frowning, and the leaves shadowed his face even this close to the house.

“You mean, can I feel them that distinctly?” he said. His shoulders hunched and came down again, like he’d spent so long hiding this side of himself that he didn’t know how not to be defensive. “Not exactly.”

“Well, I can tell,” she said again, shrugging at him. “I think I always could, but I didn’t concentrate. Or no, that’s not right.” Her throat closed up. “I thought about them all the time.” 

Castle’s fingers clutched into a fist, which meant that he gripped her hand harder as well, twisting into an unnatural angle. But she must have winced, because he released her to take her hand in both of his, smoothing his palms over her skin. “You thought about them and they thought about you, clearly. How fast they picked up on calling you mom, how they run to you when-”

She felt her own shoulders go up to her ears; she wasn’t without her own defensiveness. She knew that. Kate tried to force a breath through her lungs and relaxation back into her body, reclaim that same vibrating ease she’d had since rolling around in the grass with him.

“I’m... connected to them,” she said finally. She shook her head. “That’s a terrible - doesn’t even begin to describe it. I thought it was normal, feeling entwined with them, their every hurt and want. But they want me. They want me, right now. I can feel that. Can you not?”

“When I’m close, I can,” he said, leaning a hip against the stone wall that enclosed the back yard’s secret garden. “When we’re all in the room together. When I’m holding one of them.”

Kate glanced up to the house - the castle - looking up to the tower windows where the boys were apparently awake from their nap and wanting her. “And now?”

“Just you,” he said. His thumbs both stroked along the inside of her wrist. “I can feel - things from you. Sense. Presence. You’re everywhere.”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “But not - it’s not whole thoughts, though, right? Because-”

“No. Not even Colin does that,” he assured her. “And likely James doesn’t either. We used to say it was highly specific body language, picking up those cues, and that’s what it is for me, for sure. But you with those boys, James, Colin-”

“More than that,” she said slowly. “But when you came into the facility, when we got to their room... you knew.”

He nodded, his jaw tensing. He released her hand and gripped the edge of the stone wall, the low retaining wall where the flower beds had been planted around a sparkling fountain. It was unreal, all of it. Everything. This whole damn conversation.

“How did you know?”

“I - they were in my head. How else? I couldn’t fathom not belonging to them and them to me.”

She nodded, her throat tight as she remembered. “Felt like that when they were born,” she admitted. “Didn’t want to. Fought like hell not to. But the moment I thought I was losing them-”

“Because your water broke, you were in labor.”

She glanced sharply at him, surprised by just how much he took in. Every last damn detail. He had memorized every slip of her tongue, every time she’d spoken more to him than she’d meant to reveal.

“Yes, then,” she said. “When I thought they were too early to live.”

“You loved them. You do love them.”

She nodded. Unassailable, that love. “But it was more than that,” she said. “I didn’t understand it, what was happening, until the boys staged their little coup.”

“Coup?”

“I’d done a few starvation protests, but theirs was damn effective,” she muttered. “When Black tried to wean them. The boys refused to eat - or at least, that’s what I put together - refused to eat and barely moved, slept all the time. I heard one of the docs say failure to thrive. Like that’s a term they use or something. It haunted me until I saw them for myself, when he let me in the room. An hour or they die. I thought it was a threat. I couldn’t figure out what he meant at first, what was I supposed to be doing in an hour? But then the nurse - or he might have been a tech - he pushed me to Wyatt’s isolette and how skinny he was, how weak. He could barely hold his eyes open, but he saw me and-”

Kate stopped, overwhelmed. Mortified by how it had all come spilling out, how a few well-timed questions from Castle and the blue warmth of his eyes made her confess things.

“And what, Kate?” he whispered. He leaned forward from his position against the stone wall and snagged her elbows, dragged her to stand between his knees. His arms wrapped around her felt like strength. “What did Wyatt do when he saw you again?”

She closed her eyes, but she could see it all over again. “He mewled for me, pitiful, plaintive sound, but I felt it... here.” She pressed her hand to her sternum. “My soul. He wanted me so badly that I was reaching in and picking him up and nursing him before I even knew what I was doing.”

Castle’s arms came up and braced her back, pulled her down into him. She was hunched awkwardly in this position, so she gave in and sank to his thigh, sitting in his lap as he held her.

“And then James?”

She nodded. “I ended up on the floor with both of them so they could nurse together. The three of us curled up, my knees bracing them because my arms were gonna give out. I hadn’t seen them in weeks. I think I was just trying not to cry.”

“God, Kate, I want to kill him. He’s dead, ash, long dead, but I want to gut him every time something else comes up.”

“I did it for you, didn’t I?” she muttered. “For the boys. Don’t you think he got what was coming to him?”

“Not nearly enough,” he growled. “Not damn close to enough. And not for me. Not for the boys. For you. He deserved a thousand screaming deaths, each more horrific than the last, for what he did to you.”

“I’m here. He’s not.” She tried to push away from Castle, but he held her irrevocably. She didn’t like it, suddenly, didn’t like the way her shoes scuffled in the packed dirt of the path. “Get off me.”

He let her go.

She backed away, scrubbing both hands through her hair, piling it on top of her head to breathe. She took a slow loop away from him, a tight circle really, spinning in the wheel of the garden, but those boys needed her. Wanted. They wanted her.

She had to explain it to him. If only for her own sake, what this was when the boys wanted. “They did that, way back then at only six months old. They did that together, dragging me where they wanted me. From then on, I had them every night, and it ruined all of Black’s plans, I know. He put me back on a schedule, set times for sleeping and eating - I had to - because of those boys wanting me every night to nurse.”

Castle watched her, though warily, she could tell. That was fine. Better that than the constant trapping her.

“When they were born and Black and the nurse put them against my chest, we were skin to skin. They were so small they could curl up right at my neck.” She felt herself with her hands up, as if feeling the weight of those little bodies. “It did something to me, and it did something to them, skin to skin, their weak dark eyes already open when they shouldn’t have been.”

Castle bowed his head, watching his hands.

She swallowed and sank down to sit beside him on the low stone wall. “You ever hear what happens to baby ducks? Baby goslings?”

Castle’s head jerked up, frown creasing his face.

“Imprinting,” she said slowly. “The first face they see - that’s mom, forever. When I was in high school, this guy was the first thing these geese saw when they hatched. He trained them and would fly this paraglider thing with them, migrating. He made some kind of movie out of it, but anyway, that’s where I know it from.”

“Imprinting,” he said slowly. “I know of it. In animals, it’s trust-recognition independent of the consequences of behavior.”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, frowning.

His shoulders slumped. “Means, doesn’t matter what the imprintor might do to the imprintee, can’t change the trust bonds there. Genetically and evolutionarily-speaking, it shouldn’t happen. It’s damn dangerous in biological world. But it does.”

“It did,” she said simply. “But it wasn’t just on them. It was on me. And sitting outside on the wall with you when they’re in there wanting me so badly - it’s about all I can do not to shove you down and run in there.”

Castle stared at her, a half-second’s shock trickling through him before he jumped to his feet and grabbed her arm. “Well then what in the fuck are we doing out here? Come on, Beckett. The ducklings demand.”

\-----

Colin was sitting in the living room with the television on, watching Sneakers again - his favorite movie - with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes half-closed. Castle had no idea what Colin had been doing last night, but he supposed he hadn’t gotten much sleep. He kicked his brother’s feet off the coffee table as they came in the French doors, and Colin jerked upright.

“You hear the boys?” Castle said, but even as his accusation came out, he realized he didn’t actually hear them. And the audio was low on the movie, so it wasn’t that.

“You’re interrupting my favorite scene, asshole. Shove off.”

Kate glanced back at them over her shoulder, an eyebrow raised as she headed for the bedroom. Castle shook his head - no problem here - and followed her.

“They don’t cry?” he asked aloud. But then he realized that the boys hadn’t made much fuss when they were alone. Only with Castle when Beckett was in sight. As if they knew better. As if they were used to this.

Fuck, it hurt. Everywhere he turned, the horror of the last three years was glaringly obvious. 

Kate was already halfway up the stone steps when Castle cleared the threshold, and he quickly jogged up behind her. He was at her side when she opened the gate, and they turned the corner together.

Both boys were awake, standing up in the bed, James clutching his rag doll while Wyatt sucked on his thumb with the rabbit against his cheek. They caught sight of Kate and both of their faces lit up - God, it was shocking, how very relieved they looked to see her - and James lifted both arms to her.

“Mama!”

Wyatt popped his thumb out of his mouth and gave a cackling laugh, took up his brother’s demanding call. “Mama, mama, mama-”

“Hey, there, guys, you have a good nap?” Kate went straight for the bed and knelt before them. James barreled into her, his arms around her neck and the rag doll crushed between them, just managing to squeeze in before Wyatt. His brother whined and head-butted them both, but Castle leaned over and reached in, picked Wyatt up.

But Wyatt wasn’t pleased with being farther away from Kate, and he leaned out of Castle’s arms and tried to reach her. “Wait a second, son,” Castle murmured. “Give her a minute. You won’t be left out.”

He rubbed Wyatt’s back until Kate detached herself from James, and then she stood and came to them, smiling softly. It gutted Castle, and must have done the same to Wyatt, because the boy mewled her name and gave a pitiful look, diving into her chest.

She hugged him, letting Castle hold his weight, her mouth against his ear and whispering reassurances to him. Castle felt a weight on his feet and glanced down to find James pulling himself to stand, clinging to his leg as he did.

“Hey, guys, let’s go downstairs and watch a movie on the couch,” Castle said, dipping a knee and dropping his hand to the top of James’s head. “How about it? That way we can all touch Mommy.”

Kate left kisses on Wyatt’s cheeks and backed away, untangling the boy’s fingers from her shirt, and then she squatted down to James again. 

Castle nudged her with his knee. “Don’t pick him up. I can get him.”

“He can walk,” she said. She stood, taking James’s hand, and then regarded Wyatt in his arms. “And so can Wy. He needs to catch up. Come on, baby, on your feet.”

Castle lifted an eyebrow, but she wasn’t wrong, so he bent over and put down Wyatt. The boy whined and raised his arms for Castle, but Castle merely took his hand and squeezed.

“Mommy says you can walk. I’ll help you, kid. You’ll be fine.”

“Will you grab their blankets and the bunny and doll?”

“Yeah, I’ll collect some stuff. A few toys. I doubt they’ll sit and watch the movie, but they can play downstairs.”

“Smart,” she nodded, already heading for the stairs with James. He watched her open the gate, not sure why he felt the need to hover, to dog her steps like she might go tumbling - like she was as unsteady on her feet as Wyatt.

Castle turned and gathered the plastic steering wheel set-up, the parking garage with its toy cars (which kept sliding off the ramp so that Wyatt giggled as Castle had to juggle everything and catch them before they fell). He piled the blankets on top, and James’s rag doll, and then he kicked the rabbit towards Wyatt.

“Hey. Pick this up, kid.”

Wyatt glanced up at him with an accusatory glare and then swiped up his bunny, hugged it to his chest with one arm. Still glaring.

“Sorry, sorry. Won’t kick your bunny. Hang on tight to him. We’re going down the stairs.”

“Mama.”

“Yeah, following Mama and James. You ready?”

“Mama.” Relish in the name, as if Wyatt was telling him that Mommy wouldn’t dare kick his bunny and he was glad to be going.

“Alright, little punk, come on.” He balanced the collection of toys and blankets in one arm and held Wyatt’s hand, hip checked the gate to pop it open (Kate had left it unlatched for him and damn, that was smart of her). He started down the stone steps and felt Wyatt balk behind him.

He turned and saw Wyatt hesitating.

“You can do it,” Castle said calmly, taking a firmer grip of Wyatt’s hand up to his wrist. Making sure he had him. “I’ve got you, son. We’ll take it slow.”

Wyatt flashed him a beseeching look, just one quick glance of absolute please, but it quickly died.

Castle released Wyatt’s hand. “Stay right here,” he said, then turned and raced down the stairs, dumped the toys at the bottom, and then came right back up.

Wyatt hadn’t moved an inch. Clutching that bunny so tight the thing would’ve been strangled if it’d been real.

Castle crouched before Wyatt and held out both hands, offering his help. “Wyatt, look at me. Hey. Hey there, my man. We can do this.” He reached in for Wyatt and the boy slowly gripped his fingers. “Hey, silly rabbit, we’ll do this. Watch.”

Castle moved up to the step and sat down beside Wyatt, tugged the boy to sit with him. Wyatt clutched the rabbit with a death grip, but he glanced over at Castle as if to say what now?

“Here, hand me this, kiddo. Make it easier.” Castle slowly was able to pry bunny out of Wyatt’s grip, and when it was free, he tossed the rabbit down to the base of the stairs.

Wyatt squawked and stood up, anger in his tone as he babbled at Castle, pointing down the stairs.

Castle tried to suppress his grin, but he couldn’t. Kid was pissed. 

“Yeah, I know. Rabbit’s down there and we’re up here. So what’re we gonna do about it, Wy? Huh?” He wrapped his fingers around Wyatt’s hand and squeezed. “We’re going to climb down the stairs and get it. Come on. You can do this. We’ll go slow.”

Castle stood slowly, keeping himself hunched over so that he filled Wyatt’s vision, his grip secure so that Wyatt wouldn’t doubt him. He tugged slightly and the boy shuffled forward, bent his knees as if gauging the distance.

“Not jumping, crazy kid. Step down. Like this.” He took a step down and then another, and he saw Wyatt studying him intently. Learning. He was paying attention. Had no one ever modeled it for him before? Had someone modeled it for James? Or did James just have so much more confidence than his brother because of the physical tests he’d been through?

“You sat at a table or on the floor and you worked at puzzles. I know. But this is a puzzle too. Where to put your feet, how your body fits together to make this work. And you can do it, you can figure it out, Wyatt. Come on, baby.”

Wyatt eased a foot off the step and dangled it there a moment, and then abruptly sat down. All the way to his bottom. Castle sighed, moving to go back up and cajole him to standing again, but instead, Wyatt scooted down and dropped off the step on his bottom.

Castle chuckled, glancing down at Wyatt. “Well. Kid. You figured it out. That works for me. Here, I’ll let go of your hand and you can hang on to the step as you go.”

He released Wyatt’s hand though the boy tried to hang on to his fingers; he untangled them and nodded, taking another step away so that Wyatt would follow.

He did, scooting down on his bottom again, both hands on the lip of the stone step to hang on, soften his landing. The steps were shallow enough that it worked, and Wyatt’s face began to open up, his tension and concentration breaking for a spark of that usual cheerfulness.

“Hey, my man,” Castle grinned. “You got it. Get your rhythm and let’s go.”

Wyatt figured it out. He caught on to how fast he could go, jarring down the stairs on his butt - the diaper probably padded him somewhat - and by the time they got to the bottom, he had set up a pretty fast clip.

“Wyatt!” Castle crowed, scooping him up from the floor and into his arms, hugging him tightly. “Good job, son. You made it all by yourself. Wow. Look at you go.”

He kissed the boy’s cheeks even as Wyatt squirmed in his arms, and Castle tickled his neck, his sides until Wyatt gave him a little peal of helpless laughter.

“Good job, what a good job. See? You got this, kid. You can do everything James can do. Just takes some figuring out.” He kissed Wyatt’s neck, gobbled back to his ear until Wyatt squealed and clutched Castle’s hair.

“What’s this all about?” Kate said from the doorway.

Castle turned around and felt the blush rising in his cheeks. She had one eyebrow raised and she was glancing at the toys at Castle’s feet, the cars scattered by his haste to get back up the stairs. She gave them an amused look.

“Uh. Just celebrating. Wyatt scooted down the stairs on his ass. He figured it out all by himself.”

Kate’s lips spread into a wide smile and she lifted up from the door frame and came to them. Her mouth kissed him first, a brush against his jaw, before she gave Wyatt loud, smacking kisses.

“So proud of you, baby. You came down the stairs all by yourself. Oh, look how proud your daddy is.”

Castle’s chest clenched. He was proud. So damn proud. Of both of them, himself for helping his son out and Wyatt for doing it.

Fuck. He needed this. He had needed this and he’d had no fucking idea it was out there, that this kind of fullness could exist, where cajoling a toddler down the stairs could be the highlight of the afternoon.

“Come on, my proud guys,” Kate murmured. “We’ve got a movie to watch.” She nodded towards the doorway. “I’ll gather the cars if you can get the rest of it.”

Castle leaned over and set Wyatt on his feet again, proud of how the boy ran for his bunny and then went dashing down the hall after his brother.

Kate caught Castle by the wrist, brought his arm up slowly to her lips for a kiss that made his pulse bump hard. “You’re a good man,” she said quietly. Her eyes were unfathomable. Her mouth pressed into a line. “We’re lucky. So damn lucky it’s you.”

Never in his life had someone looked at him like she did.

\-----

Kate curled her knees up onto the couch and listed slowly into Castle. He opened his arm to her and she settled in closer, and even though her eyes kept drooping, she was listening at least. The movie was funny and Castle would chuckle and his chest would vibrate under her ear, and that was nice.

She lifted her eyelids when she heard the clank of plastic on wood. The boys were playing cars. Not exactly together, but alongside each other, both with a truck in hand, rolling them along the wood floor.

James kept glancing back as if to check she was still here, but Wyatt didn’t seem to worry as much. He ran to Castle with things he found that he was trying to share - a rock tracked in from outside, one of his cars, the bunny - and Castle gave each item a thorough consideration, as if it was some minor revelation.

He was a good father; her dad would love-

Kate swallowed.

Her dad would have loved him.

They’d have talked, sat down together and talked about - about anything at all. Her father would have gone all professor about something and Castle would have done it right back, wouldn’t he? Sat down at the kitchen table and talked about how Castle and Colin had built the house, how he’d bought a little property and wanted to put a cabin on it-

If he’d lived. 

Kate took a slow breath, trying to get a handle on the ragged edge of this wave of grief, trying to keep it under control. 

If her dad hadn’t been killed, he would have built that cabin. It wouldn’t have been just that concrete slab in the middle of a clearing, no grave stones on the hill above. A full cabin, probably a dock with a boat landing, maybe even a little boathouse. Her father had always wanted a place to store his fishing gear and tackle, a little motorboat to put out on the lake. 

He’d have loved this place too. Loved the river, the trees, the way this place had been put together. Loved Castle.

His hand came up to her face, half-covering her eyes. “Hey,” he whispered. “What’s going on, Kate?” Castle’s mouth came down to the top of her head, a soft kiss that made the tears spill over her eyes. “Hey, baby, whoa, hey. It’s not a tragedy, just a comedy.”

She laughed, though it felt a little hysterical, and Castle cradled her cheek, keeping her head against his shoulder, her forehead at his neck. Kate nodded against him, hooking her fingers around his wrist and hanging on to him. “I know. A comedy. It’s funny.”

“Colin looks worried,” he whispered into the top of her head.

Kate peered around Castle to his brother sitting beside him in the other corner of the couch. He did actually look concerned, and she flushed, pressed her cheek back against Castle’s chest.

“I’m fine,” she muttered.

“Sad?”

“No, just - thinking about my dad.”

“Sad,” Castle insisted. “That’s okay. You can be sad about him. He was a good man who loved you so much, Kate.”

She let a noise, trying not to absolutely lose it. She had to push off against Castle’s chest and swipe the back of her hand under her eyes. Just to keep control of herself. Castle didn’t seem to want to let go of her, and she had to get free. She couldn’t keep crying just because she thought about her dad.

“Kate-”

“I’m fine. I’m fine. Let me walk. Just - let me go for a walk.”

Castle’s jaw dropped, and she felt shame flush hotly through her. She pushed off the couch and moved for the French doors, the sunlight still streaming through and striping the floor. She wrenched on the knob and shouldered her way through, gulping in the fresh air, the heat that poured down with the light.

She stood there for a moment, her heart tripping over her own stupid, uncontrollable ache, but it was still true. 

Her dad had been murdered just like her mother. They were gone. They had never known - she would never see them again, the boys would never meet them, never have grandparents who would spoil them. Her dad couldn’t help her now; he was so far gone that there was nothing left of him.

She was cast off, alone. 

A rattle behind her made her turn, and she saw James up against the window of the French door, his face pressed to the glass. Her heart cinched, squeezed too tightly, and she jerked away from the house and down across the lawn, her bare feet against the warm grass.

She escaped to the tangle of trees and slid down the bank, her breath clutching, her heart not able to catch up.

When she got to the river, she plunged straight into the water, the shockingly cold water, icy in its grip. She ached down to her bones, everything ached, and the swift current soon began to make her numb.

She sank down slowly in the river’s pull, her knees hitting the stones, water swirling up over her lap and stealing her breath.

Ice water eddied around her stomach, tickled under her bra. Her pelvis was numb.

Her hands floated down through the water, drifting down, growing tingly, biting with cold.

She felt the sob break out of her, and she jerked her hands up, freezing cold icicles of her fingers digging into her eyes. It shocked the self-pity out of her system, and she straightened up, tried to get her feet under her again.

She was so numbed by the cold that she had to crawl.

God, she was pathetic. This was absolutely ridiculous. She hadn’t spent three years in that damn facility to half-drown in two feet of cold water. Damn it, get up.

Get up.

Kate crawled onto the bank and flopped to her back, sucking in a breath that tasted like ice and burned her lungs. She blinked in the golden honey of afternoon sunlight, let it wrap around her. Her eyelashes were dappled with water from the stream, they threw rainbows around her vision.

She started shivering and drew her knees up to her chest, rolling onto her side. She buried her face in the soft grass, closing her eyes.

She was so tired of crying.

But she couldn’t stop.

\-----

Castle couldn’t stand it.

Well, he was currently standing it, but he wasn’t sure he could continue on this way. Waiting for her to come back, giving her space, allowing her to grieve in private. 

I’m not sad, just thinking about my dad.

How was that not sad? 

But he stayed away, he didn’t chase after her, he didn’t drag her back into the limelight of his overbearing concern and sympathy. He had wanted to, but Colin had tsked at him when he’d moved for the French doors, and Castle had stopped in his tracks.

Instead, Castle had scooped up James and carried him to the kitchen and set about finding toddler-appropriate snacks. They’d gone with grapes and blueberries, and James now contentedly sat on the kitchen counter, Castle’s hips pressed to the granite to keep him hemmed in, both of them tossing back the fruit.

Wyatt played with the cars and the playskool garage, the contraption making various noises, the movie turned up a little to compensate, so that the whole thing was a racket, the rattle of gunfire from the movie, the car chases on screen and off. James ate quietly with him, and Castle began to understand now the emotional urge to eat his feelings, to eat for no real physical-energy purpose but purely from the need for distraction.

Damn, she had done a number on him. How Black would have hated to see Castle this way.

Castle took pride and great pleasure in that thought. As much as his guts were being twisted by her, as much as it ached viscerally to go through this with her, it could only be good.

His father would not approve.

James smashed a blueberry against his mouth as he tried to mimic Castle and pop one in. His lips and cheek were stained with the fruit and his hands bled dark purple. 

“Kid, you’re making a mess. Can’t quite seem to aim those little things, can you?”

James gave his hands a rueful look and then held them up to Castle as if in presentation.

“Yeah, I see. Blueberries. Lick it off. Don’t waste it. Good stuff even if it’s crushed.”

James tilted his head.

Castle took a hand and brought it to his mouth, suckled blueberry flesh from James’s fingers. The boy gasped, eyes widening, but then the laughter tumbled out of his mouth, rather helpless, a little shocked. Castle grinned and licked his lips.

“Mmm, good. See? Even if you can’t get it in your mouth the first time, still good.”

James hesitantly took his hand back, staring down at his somewhat clean fingers. Castle wriggled his own in James’s face, garnering his attention, and then he picked up a blueberry and popped it in his mouth.

James immediately stuck his hand in the bowl and fished out a five or six, and Castle saw now what the problem was.

“Ah, James, try just one, kid.”

He reached in and opened James’s hand, dusted out the extra berries until only one remained. He closed James’s thumb and forefinger around the blueberry, then he held up his own in his pincer grip.

“Like this, James. See how I’m doing it? Hold it like this and put it in your mouth.”

James glanced up at Castle, watching avidly, and then he glanced down at his own fingers. His hand twitched as if he had no control over it, and then as James tried to lift the blueberry to his mouth, he crushed it.

Ripe fruit split and creamed James’s fingers. 

James grunted, his jaw set and glared up at Castle.

“Ha, sorry. No, don’t worry. It’s okay. Won’t get it right the first time. Gotta work on it, son. Look, if your brother can go down the stairs on his own, you can pick out one blueberry and put it in your mouth.”

James eyed the smushed mess in his fingers, obviously dissatisfied, maybe even disgusted. Castle laughed softly and took James’s hand by the wrist, and then he put James’s fingers in his mouth and noisily sucked them clean, making a show of it.

James chuckled, a dry kind of laugh, much like an old man. His eyes had lit up again, some of that severe frustration had left him.

“There you go, kid. Not a big deal, right? Try it again.”  
Castle modeled picking out one blueberry, showed it to James in his pincer grip, and then he put it in his mouth. 

James studied his movements carefully, total absorption on his face, the kind that had been required for life in Black’s trials. Castle knew well enough how it had felt, the deep concentration, the driving need to prove himself, to damn well get it right this time.

He didn’t want that for his kids, not like that. His sons. He wanted them to grow up in an atmosphere where failure was part of the learning process, not a stigma.

“You got this, Jay,” he said quietly, lifting his free hand to comb it through James’s dark hair. 

The boy’s head tilted back with Castle’s movement, his blue eyes flying up to Castle’s face as if startled.

“Hey,” Castle said, purposefully relaxing his face, giving his son a smile. “You’re okay, James. Might not get it today. Might take you a while to build those muscles and get your hand-eye coordination down. Still proud of you for trying.”

He knew the kid had no idea what he said, but he also knew that James could feel it. And he hoped the feeling rode on his words, entered his son’s heart and went to work there, undoing the damage Black’s program had done.

He couldn’t change his brothers’ ingrained ways of thinking, their damaged and cracked psyches, but he could change James and Wyatt.

And hopefully, in doing that, he could help Kate heal.

James’s little body began to relax. He put his hand into the bowl of blueberries, again shoveling up five or six blueberries. But this time he held up his hand and opened his palm to Castle, clearly seeking to try it again.

Castle caught the berries that tumbled out of his son’s hand, and he put them on the counter before the bowl. “Try from here, James. Pick one up at a time.”

He did so himself, using his forefinger and thumb to pluck a berry from the line of them, and then he watched in expanding relief as James reached in to mimic him. With deliberate and exaggerated care, James made a beak of his finger and thumb, his other fingers crooked hilariously in an effort to keep them clear of the counter.

And then James managed to pinch the blueberry in his grasp, tenuously, almost crushing it, but not quite.

“Hey, look at that,” Castle grinned. “Good job, James. Now that you got it. Put it in your mouth.”

Castle brought his own hand up to his lips and pushed the berry through, careful to go slowly so that James could watch.

James glanced to his hand as if in disbelief - I’m supposed to do what?

“Give it a shot,” Castle said softly. He cupped the back of James’s head and stroked his fingers through his son’s dark hair. It was beginning to curl at the neck, reminding him of Kate’s natural waves when she let it air dry.

James tentatively brought the blueberry up, and for a moment, Castle thought his grip was going to burst the poor thing at the seams again. But then, in a desperate gamble, James shoved the whole thing into his mouth, cramming it against his bared teeth, opening just wide enough at the last minute to get it in.

It wasn’t clean. It was rushed and panicky almost, done in a hurry before he could think about it too hard, but he’d done it.

“Oh, good job.” Castle applauded, not even feeling ridiculous as he did it, and then he gripped James’s shoulders and brought him in for a tight embrace. “I’m so proud of you. Trying so hard. You did it, James.”

James might actually be trembling. He wasn’t sure, maybe it was just his own rush of accomplishment. He’d encouraged both boys today to tackle something scary and different for each of them, and they’d responded.

And they’d been successful.

If he could find a way to do that for Kate...

“Mama,” James said against his neck.

“Yeah, Mama will be so proud of you too,” Castle whispered, cupping the back of his son’s head with an aching tenderness. He hadn’t realized he could love someone so much it physically hurt. But it did; he did. He loved his sons, had loved them the moment he’d felt them there, seen them and made that connection, but this was different.

He loved James. This boy, his distinct personality, his distrustful nature, his sense of responsibility to his brother, his willingness to forge ahead and clear the way, his loyalty to his mother, his sense of feeling for the world around him. This boy. 

Just as Castle had come to love Wyatt, and his own unique personality - his laidback approach, his fun, his laughter, his drama. Distinct boys, distinct loves.

And Kate. His instant connection with her was one thing - and no less real than this - but knowing her, knowing her, made a difference, sharpened and heightened and gave texture to his love. His ever-expanding knowing of Kate made it possible to be more and more the man she needed, to figure out her weaknesses and help shore her up, just as she had already begun to do for him.

A team, a unit. Partners. 

He and his brothers had always had that mindset drilled into them, you are part of a unit, but with Kate, the partnership was rich with meaning, with individual worth and value in a way it never had when Black had been at their helm. Kate had opened him up to emotion and a breadth of experiences which made it possible for him to be patient with his sons, made it possible for him to teach them, to love them, to love her. 

And he hoped that he, in turn, sharpened her, gave her support and relief and healing, complement to her struggles and a pillar to her love for these boys.

He hoped that the more Wyatt and James excelled and grew and came out of their shells with them, the more it convinced Kate to stay.

To stay.

He couldn’t lose her. Not now. He just couldn’t give her up.

\-----


	25. Chapter 25

She had to peel off her shorts and lay them on the bank to dry, and then she slipped out of her shirt too because the bottom half was soaked. She felt truly childish by that time, and instead of trudging back up to the house in wet clothing, she laid out on the bank in the biggest patch of sunlight, shivering like a drowned rat, and she closed her eyes.

It was time to grow up.

Her parents were both dead, and yes, her grief was fresh every hour, some new facet of it that collapsed her all over again. Yes, her parents had been murdered. That was a fact and wallowing in it wasn’t going to change things. She did herself no good letting it immobilize her.

Her parents were dead; she was alive. 

She was alive. Against all odds, she was here, breathing, free. She had killed a man to get here - oh, God, she had killed four people, four - but she had gotten here, to this side of things.

She was twenty-two years old, approaching twenty-three in four months, and she was out. She was out. God. She was free to choose the color of her underwear, free to choose to walk outside and step into a freezing river, free to choose.

She was going to damn well start choosing proactively and not reactively. What was it her mother had always said? Life’s the thing that happens while you’re busy making other plans.

Her life was happening right now. Right now. And Kate Beckett was not going to disappoint her parents, dishonor them, by walking into a damn river and giving herself hypothermia after all this.

She wanted those boys.

She very badly wanted those boys. 

It made her ache, the want of them; it made goose bumps stand up on her arms and her body begin to shake and her throat close up, how very badly she wanted them.

She was completely unfit. She was so badly unfit that it was laughable - no, it was fucking selfish, it was selfish, to even think about keeping them.

But she did. She hadn’t been selfish, truly selfish, in three years. She was giving herself this moment, this honesty, in her first real moment of clarity since escaping the facility. 

She wanted to keep her sons.

The tears leaked out of her eyes, but she shoved the heels of her hands into her sockets and dammed them up, growling at herself. She scrubbed her face and sat up, staring hard into the forest on the opposite bank.

A dog was staring back at her.

Kate caught her breath; the dog lifted its ears.

Oh, no. That wasn’t a dog.

Kate stared across the river at the animal. Wolf. Coyote. She didn’t know. It seemed alert, aware, but not at all wary of her. Maybe the water between them provided enough of a defensive barrier, or maybe it simply held no fear of human beings, but the canine rotated its ears as it studied her.

It looked like a German shepherd - shaggy fur, brown with darker markings, triangle ears, narrow snout, white muzzle. She couldn’t remember if there were wolves in New York State any longer, though she’d seen coyotes before, on a camping trip with her dad. None this big though.

The dog-beast lifted its nose as if scenting the air, gave a short yip of a howl, and then, almost from thin air, two smaller dogs came slinking out of the forest.

Kate’s breath caught. They were pups, young and immature, and they tumbled over each other as they came, playing and nipping, one yowling at the other. The mother lowered her head and yet still stared directly across the bank at Kate, but the two pups went down to the river and began to drink.

Kate stared, breathless, while the pups splashed and rolled, baring their bellies and their teeth in equal measure. The mother snapped at the tail of one and it skittered back to the edge, drank thirstily and thoroughly, bright pink tongue so strong as it curled and tunneled through the water.

And then in a matter of seconds, all three turned around and disappeared back into the trees. The shadows and trick of sunlight through leaves made the pups immediately invisible, though for a few seconds she could still see the mother, the streak of white down the insides of her hind legs.

Kate stayed where she was for a long time, watching the trees almost in disbelief.

When the sunlight began to stretch, her spot becoming shaded now, Kate finally shook herself. She reached dazedly for her clothes, shorts still damp, and dressed, the shirt clinging to her stomach. Didn’t matter.

She was something of a traumatic wreck, but she had eight weeks (seven now) before the boys were weaned. Before they were no longer pups.

She was going to make herself deserve to keep them.

She was going to damn well get her shit together.

And maybe in eight weeks, she would no longer be a derelict. Maybe in eight weeks, she might find a way to set her own course.

\-----

Castle was consoling a whiny, near-crying Wyatt, trying to gently bounce him while he paced the floor when Beckett came in through the French doors.

He stopped dead, surprised by the shine in her eyes and the look on her face, but Wyatt screamed for her and began sobbing in earnest.

Kate’s cheeks were flushed, her shirt damp, wet spots on her shorts, but her walk towards him was purposeful and in command. In a flash, he wondered about that damn scalpel again (where the fuck was it?), but Kate was sliding her hands around Wyatt’s little body and bringing the boy into her.

“No,” Castle choked out. “No, wait. Sit down. Kate.”

“I heading there,” she said easily, and she was. She was lowering herself to the couch and bringing him and Wyatt with her. “I don’t have his full weight. Do I, Wyatt? Hey there, that’s enough of the tears, little cub.”

Cub?

Castle released Wyatt and sat forward out of her way as she cradled the boy in her lap. She held his head against her chest and rocked side to side, and Wyatt’s reactionary cries turned to gasping little breaths and whimpering.

“He’s a melodramatic bast-”

“Shut up, Colin,” she said. Her words were quiet but they held steel, and Castle glanced to his brother with a lift of his eyebrow. You wanna mess with her right now?

Colin rolled his eyes and slumped back against the couch, thumbing the volume up on the television. James came in from the kitchen with blueberry stains across his mouth and chin and neck, and Kate nudged Castle’s knee.

“So, you wanna tell me what happened?”

“James and I were eating blueberries. Wyatt got jealous. But, uh, we’d eaten them all. He pitched a fit.”

“Uh-huh,” she murmured. “Always have equal. Don’t know if you’ve noticed but they’re no good at sharing. They’ve never had to.”

Castle nodded, hanging his head, but James came winding his way through the scattered toys and approached him, hanging on to Castle’s knees with both blue-stained hands. “But James learned how to use the pincer grip,” he added. Wyatt was still making pathetic sounds against Kate, working for her attention.

“Hey, that’s something,” she said, beaming down at James. The boy ducked his head and gave that shy, overwhelmed smile, knocking his cheek against Castle’s knee and then hiding his face completely.

Castle lifted him off the floor and sat back with James in his arms, his shoulder tight against Kate’s. She was different, somehow, more confident. More determined. 

“We need a few things,” she said to him. “I’ll make a list. But first is a second bed. You were right about that. Child-sized plates, forks, spoons, cups - because those are the things they’ll need to be handling, learning.”

“Yeah,” Castle said, nodding dumbly. Something stubborn and sharp had been sparked in her out there. “We can do that.”

“And I - um - need soap, shampoo, a razor. A few other things.”

“Shit, a razor. Why didn’t I think of that?” Castle shook his head. “I should have. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not about sorry, Castle, or we’d be here all day trading fucking apologies. It’s done. Let’s move forward.”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t done; they were in the fucking middle of it. But he knew what she meant. “Okay. So make a list and we’ll go out today. Do you want to go yourself or would you-”

“I’ll go with whoever is going,” she said decisively. Her eyes flashed that burnt gold mica, layers of electric metallics in her gaze. “And Colin? I’d like to see the research you did on my father’s estate. As soon as possible, please.”

Colin blinked and then seemed to straighten up. “Okay.” He took a breath like rousing himself. “Yes. I have it on a flash drive. I’ll get it.”

And then Castle’s brother jumped right up and went for the front hall and his own bedroom, where presumably the flash drive was.

“And, Castle.”

He turned a dumbfounded stare on her.

“I need you to find either a sketch artist or a program that will do the same thing. I want to get pictures for the faces I still have in my head before that fades. Then we can see about tracking them down. I expect they’ll be familiar to you or your brother - or someone. Working for so long with Black. Can you do that?”

“I - yeah - there’s a program,” he croaked. Damn. She just...

“Good,” she said. Her hand smoothed down Wyatt’s back and he realized the kid had been lulled into quiet. “Our first priority is to be sure none of those facilities exist out there, and no one can possibly duplicate the work.”

“No,” he rasped, shaking his head as if to clear himself of a trance. “No, our first priority is keeping you and these kids alive. Healthy.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I wouldn’t suggest otherwise, but can we say these are co-goals? If there are doctors or even security personnel out there who know about me, about the boys, then I’d say our two agendas dovetail quite nicely.”

He cursed under his breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes.”

She nodded, laid her hand on his thigh as if reassuring him. “You have a better grasp on the medical side anyway. So I’m leaving that to you. I’ll work with Colin on getting these places mapped, identifying possible targets, and mopping up the last of this.”

He gaped at her, not at all liking her wanting to work with Colin.

Her fingers curled on his knee. “I need your help on this, Castle. If we divide and conquer, then we make sure these boys are safe - alive - and me as well.”

“You have it,” he growled. “You will always have my help. But don’t forget what happened to you, what you’ve been through. You need to take it easy.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but she didn’t look sorry at all. “I can’t do that. I won’t. There’s no time to take it easy. I have three weeks before the next mandatory doctor’s appointment, so stick the needle in me and keep track of my heart rate, but don’t get in my way.”

He stared at her. And then realized what she’d said. “Three weeks. What three weeks?”

“The discharge nurse,” she frowned. “Didn’t you-” Kate’s face cleared, and then she flushed with a bright, beautiful pink. “No, you were out of the room. She said I had to see my OB in three weeks to check for scarring. We were talking about when I can have sex. Penetration, specifically.”

Penetration.

No hesitation as she said it, despite the flush of her cheeks. She was looking right at him too.

Colin came back through just then, breaking Castle’s dumfounded if hot and bothered countenance. But Kate was serene.

What the fuck had happened to her down by the river?

“Here’s the flash drive,” Colin said, handing it over. 

“Thank you,” she nodded, folding it in her hand. She was running her fingers through Wyatt’s hair. “Castle?”

He swiveled his head back to her.

“One more thing on the list.”

“Anything,” he said, too quickly, desperately.

She smiled, a tight-lipped and gathered thing that showed her strict control. “I want a breast pump.”

He didn’t want to get her one.

\----- 

Kate jumped into the front seat of the SUV and slammed the door shut before any more rain could get inside. She was dusted with drops, scattered showers that had fallen down the hillside and swept over their castle in the woods.

She put a finger up to the streaked glass and watched as Castle jogged down the bridge towards the Land Rover, coiled and leonine grace in his economy of movement. He came around the front of the car and got inside, the vehicle creaking with his added weight, the door slamming behind him, that faint puff of exhalation as he settled in.

“How’s it feel?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her. He was jamming the key into the ignition, adjusting the vents.

“What feel?” she said, lifting her voice over the sound of the soft rain.

“Separating from them,” he said, gesturing towards the house. She glanced back and knew without a doubt that even though the windows were too far away for her to know, the boys were there. Watching her leave.

“Um,” she stalled, drawing her fingers down the glass and into her lap. Castle started the car and put it into gear, but he didn’t release his foot from the brake. He just watched her.

She fumbled with her seatbelt, drew it across her chest, let herself have one glance back at the house.

“It sucks,” she admitted.

Castle grinned. “We’ll make it fast. Colin will text if anything goes wrong. And the pharmacy is only fifteen minutes away.”

She nodded, fiddling with the seat belt, smoothing it to lay it flat between her breasts.

“Kate.”

She glanced at him. 

His eyes were as blue as the sky reflected in the river, but they poured out of their banks and came flooding through her. She was helpless against that look.

He reached out and took her fingers from the seatbelt, held her hand for a moment. “Hey. You can do this. You want to reclaim your life, then this is a good first step.”

She nodded. “I know. Gonna take work to separate myself from them.” Even saying the words sent a rising tide up her throat, made it almost impossible to breathe. “What were you saying about panic attacks?”

He frowned, shifting towards her as if taking her seriously.

Kate shoved on his shoulder. “No, I was making a joke. A very bad joke. Come on, Castle, just go. I’ve got to learn how to keep those boys out of my head.”

Castle’s face blanked. She’d seen him look at her like that before and now she knew exactly what it meant - her words had never occurred to him. It had never occurred to him that the boys themselves might be pushing in on her, crowding her heart, putting cracks in her control. Maybe it was PTSD, but it was shared.

“Shit, you’re right,” he muttered, shaking his head. The car growled as the engine revved and Kate clutched the handle of the door as Castle angled it forward. They bumped over gravel and she slowly eased her grip.

“I still love them,” she said, feeling thick. “I mean that’s not faked or - or pushed out onto me. It’s all me.”

“I know,” he said. His hand left the steering wheel and landed on her shoulder with a squeeze, but he shifted to rest against the back of the seat. “But you’re probably right about the boys’ issues affecting you just as you affect them.”

She affected them. Oh, God.

“But at least with you?” he went on. “You’re an adult. You’ve got yourself in control, with well-regulated compartments. If that makes sense. You’re not just a free-floating mass of feelings that make no sense.”

She sat up a little straighter, glancing over at Castle. “You mean, their immaturity makes it’s worse on me, and my emotional maturity might... hide the worst of it from them?”

“Yes,” Castle said, nodding. “Definitely.”

“How can you know?”

“Colin,” he said simply.

She twisted her fingers in her lap. “What does Colin say about it?”

“Well, you’d have to ask him specifically, but what I’m saying is that my experience growing up with Colin proves that the older you get, the better handle you have on what you broadcast.”

“Broadcast. Do we do that to them?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he shrugged. Frowned. “Colin said it’s like the ocean.”

“Inside his head?”

“I think so,” Castle muttered, scraped a hand down his face as they slowed to a stop before the main road. He checked both ways, caught her eyes as he turned his head her direction. 

His hand came down to her shoulder and squeezed again, and then he gripped the wheel and turned onto the highway, the Land Rover up and over the bumps of depression and whistling through the rain with effortless control.

“Ocean waves,” she murmured, watching the rain against the windshield, the judder of the wipers across. “Drowning?”

“Used to be,” Castle answered her, their speed inching up again. “But he’s learned to float. My guess is that same intensity is what happens for James, while you and I, our connection to those boys, might be that we’re standing on the shore.”

“Rather than being in the water.” She felt like she was standing on the shore, watching the boys recede further and further from view. She felt achingly alone.

Bereft.

Lost at sea.

“Not in the sea, but we have the impression of those waves. The wave of emotion comes up and leaves its high water mark, and we know it’s there, but we don’t always know why - we don’t know the creatures swimming in the deep, we just know where the water has been.”

Kate shivered and rubbed her arms where the raindrops had not yet evaporated. Castle fiddled with the heater again and she felt the warm air slowly melt her. “I think that makes sense for what I’m feeling.”

“Yeah? Yeah, me too. Good. It helps me to have a concrete image. And when Colin is getting - well, swamped, drowned in it - I can concentrate now on withholding myself.”

“I don’t think the boys will respond well to withholding,” she frowned.

Castle grunted. Gripped the steering wheel. “No,” he said quietly, almost too softly for her to hear over the rain. “You’re right. This is different. Emotional needs are - they need to feel us there for them. Love for them. They need constancy.”

She swallowed hard and nodded, her own heart fluttering like a bird in a wind storm. They did; constancy was the exact right word for it. “I can’t close myself off from them, no matter how much I wanted to, want to.”

“No, I won’t either. Already, I can see how that was the exact wrong way to go with Colin. For him, I should have... I should have embraced him, not held him at arm’s length when he tried to escape. Love is the answer. I’ve never felt this before, never...”

Kate shifted in the seat, turned her head away from him. Her hands were shaking at the thought of the boys needing her constantly. Of never being alone, on her own, of losing the freedom to-

do what exactly? She didn’t want her freedom if it meant loneliness, separation, isolation. That was the horror of it. After everything she’d done, she was willing to be caged by two boys.

No.

No, it had to be more than that. Her parents hadn’t been oppressed by having a child, had they? No. It had never been Katie who ruled the roost; it had always been a family. That was what she had kept missing, had kept striving to find again - her family.

It looked different. Her parents were dead. 

But she could do this; she could create family here and now with what she had left. She already was - she had without even knowing it. She had brought Castle and Colin into this with her, so that now she was driving in the rain to get a breast pump with a man who had tried his damnedest to convince her there was another way while his brother stayed at home and baby-sat the two small boys. 

Kate felt the laughter bubble up and out of her before she could stop it.

“What?” Castle said, turning his head to her, back to the road. Hope in his eyes. “What’s so funny?”

“Colin is baby-sitting our kids.”

And then Castle was chuckling too, and the relief in him filled the car too, warm and reassuring, while Kate eased back against the seat and watched the rain run in rivulets down the window, her arms crossed to keep her hands from shaking.

It didn’t look like she’d hoped, wanted, dreamed. But it could be good.

If she could just keep her shit together.

\-----

Kate stalked the aisles looking like a college co-ed out past curfew, her hair damp from the ran and drying in loose curls, the sweatshirt hanging down with her fingers peeking out. Castle, in his cargo shorts and t-shirt, looked like her frowning father, or if he was being charitable, her overprotective big brother, carrying the basket through the pharmacy after her.

He should let her go.

Let her fucking shop. They had a long list, and Alex had emailed him a few vitamin supplements he ought to get for Kate, and there were other considerations here. She was heading for the women’s beauty aids and he stopped at the end of the aisle.

Castle snagged the loose sleeve of her sweatshirt and she turned, eyes flaring warily. He tried to smile, easy, comfortable, no big deal. “Hey, I’m headed to the nutritional supplements, you get whatever it is you need. Take the basket, babe.”

He held it out to her and she took it mechanically, not saying a word.

“Divide and conquer,” he reminded her. He smiled again, and then he couldn’t help himself. Castle leaned in, gripping her shoulder to keep her still, and he kissed her roughly on the mouth. “Come find me when you’re done. I’ve got to check the ingredients on the bottles for specific things, Alex said.”

Kate let out a short breath and nodded, determination crowding out the wariness in her eyes. She glanced over her shoulder and he could see her face in the security mirror that hung from the ceiling. Naked fear.

His hearted twisted.

“I could-”

“I’ll find you when I’m done,” she said, one last glance at him. She turned away, heading off at a natural pace, not hurrying, not dragging her steps either. The basket bumped her knee as she walked.

Kate Beckett was a damn impressive woman. 

He watched her until she had turned down another aisle, and then he watched the empty space where she’d been just in case. 

He finally turned away, heading for the back corner where the cold medicine and nutritional supplements lined the far wall. But his heart was a knot and it was painful as it beat inside his chest.

She was alone in here. She was alone inside her head, more importantly, the boys so far away that she’d told him in the parking lot they were a ‘lessening.’ Like two fingers easing up on a bruise.

She was alone.

Castle swallowed hard and scraped a hand down his face, but he had work to do here too. He pulled the scrap of paper out of his back pocket and unfolded it, checking the list of nitrates and phosphates and other chemical compounds that the supplemental pills couldn’t have if they were to work.

He wasn’t a chemist, and he was going to have to pay damn strict attention. Stop thinking about her wandering the Walgreens like a sad, lost ghost.

Fuck.

Stop feeling like shit for it, too - because he was certain she sensed him, in some way or another, just as he did her. And if he could get it together, then she’d be pulled up along with him.

Or at least feel confident again.

Damn it all, Castle. Focus.

He used to do this all the time for Colin. Used to shut himself down, one thought at a time until there was the blank white wall of his inner landscape-

Ah, but hadn’t he and Kate just talked about this in the car? Withholding. Withdrawal. She was already experiencing withdrawal from those boys right now, with them being out of her range apparently, but to add his own withdrawal now would be...

Truly alone.

And he never wanted her to feel like she was doing this alone.

Castle plucked a bottle mindlessly off the shelf and flipped it over to read the back, trying to scramble for purchase in the movement and intelligent thought it required.

Think. Be smart. Be good for her. How did he do that? How did he keep from pushing out his own harmful waves onto her shore, waves of fear or anxiety or bitterness or rage? These feelings churned inside him; they were new to him, really, ever since meeting her. She’d unleashed all this - this tsunami of feeling. It was her fault.

But so was the love. How he loved those boys, his sons, whom he was proud of, how they filled up places inside him he hadn’t known were so cavernous, so empty. How he loved her. 

Wanted good things for her, wanted to crush the world for the terror and cruelty it had dealt her. 

Wanted.

If he couldn’t get a handle on the rest of it, he could keep himself centered on the wanting.

Her body in his bed, the slow flush of heat up her neck and into her cheeks. The wide-open darkness in her eyes when she stared up at him. Parting her thighs. Touching the wetness that weeped from her because she wanted him too.

Fuck. Now he was aroused, sweat prickling his skin, and the words on the bottles swam before him.

Shit, he was uncomfortable now.

Well, at least he wasn’t drowning in sorrow over that lost little girl. Nope. Not-uh. He was trying to decide whether inserting his cock in her ass was still technically pelvic rest.

Damn it. Now he was picturing it.

\-----

Kate steadied her hand - sheer force of will - and focused on the display of razors with intent. She plucked the purple one from the rack and dropped it in the basket, confident at least in this decision.

Venus razor - triple blade, lotion head, contoured grip. Her mother had used them first and Kate had abandoned her old Bic throwaway for these, stealing her mom’s razor in the shower until she’d bought her own. Some things didn’t change.

She was itching to shave her legs. Bikini line. Damn. And Castle hadn’t said a fucking word about it, not once. No, he had dragged his lips across her inside thigh, back and forth as if the sensation got him hot.

Well, fuck, now she was hot. Arousal washed over her in a wave of heat, prickling her scalp and tightening her cunt.

Cunt. She’d never thought about her sex like that before him, before Castle’s hand had cupped her there to keep her from coming. Oh God, she was going to work herself up in the middle of the stupid Walgreens.

Kate closed her eyes for a moment, taking a sharp breath, and then straightened up. Razor. She had a razor. Now for shaving cream. Just pick something, Beckett.

(Was that his voice inside her head? No. NO.)

Kate grabbed a can of something promising silk, and she dropped it in the basket, hurrying to the end of the aisle. Toothbrush, the handle a lurid yellow (she liked yellow; she found herself surprised by that). Toothpaste - the same kind her parents had always bought. Close-Up. Red, tasted like red hots in your mouth. She had always felt an illicit thrill when she’d use their toothpaste instead of her own. Why was that?

Picking at her parents’ lives, sneaking from them, borrowing, but never outright stealing. Her mother would never have said no to sharing a razor or toothpaste, but Kate had never asked. She had taken, wanting...

She couldn’t remember now what it was she’d wanted. She knew what she was doing now, reclaiming them, bringing them into her life again even though they were permanently cut off from her.

They were gone. 

Kate let out a slow breath and lifted her eyes to the ceiling, the burn stinging the back of her throat too. 

She had grieved her mother. She had - she had known, being dragged away that night, watching the blood fill the paving bricks under her mother, she had known her mom was dead, that it had been over. She had seen the light die in her eyes, the twist of terrible horror as Katie had been pulled away.

Katie.

Katie was dead too.

That was the reality of things, and buying her parents’ toothpaste wasn’t going to bring them back, make them suddenly appear. 

It wasn’t okay, no, it wasn’t okay, but it was reality. It was reality and she was no longer caged and so if she wanted Close-Up toothpaste and a Venus razor and her mother’s conditioner, then so fucking what?

So what. 

Kate turned the aisle and blundered into cosmetics, breathing a little too hard, eyes stinging, and she started grabbing stuff. Eyeliner, mascara... and then she faltered. She had no idea what she wanted, had no clue what he liked, and if-

What he liked?

Oh, hell, no. No. She wasn’t buying her make-up based on what she thought Rick Castle wanted to see on her. No. She was not that pathetic. She might have been caged for three years, but she was still Kate Beckett.

The thicker black eyeliner, the curling mascara, a soft palette of brown and pink for her lids. Lip gloss - shimmery sheer - and a red tube of lipstick because she had the idea that she wanted to see lipstick marks on his cock.

Yes. That’s what she wanted.

Kate stalked down the aisle and turned the corner, came up against a display of baby products. Formula, bottles, diapers, baby food-

Kate reached out and touched the plastic packaging on a set of bright pacifiers. Four of them, and her heart hitched while her lips cracked.

Boob Man, one of the round buttons said. The next, Daddy’s Boy. The third read, Mute Button, while the fourth had a mustache. She plucked it from the display with a hysterical giggle rising up, swallowed hard to keep it down. 

Kate dropped the pacifiers into the basket. James had been sucking on his thumb. Or had that been Wyatt? One of them. And why not, why not see what they wanted, what they might never have been exposed to but could now enjoy?

Kate scanned the long aisle, but nothing else jumped out at her. She didn’t even know what half of it was for. Why the bulb thing? What was that supposed to do? Oh, damn, the breast pumps.

They all looked similarly horrifying. Each with that big suction cup, the collection bottle. The hair rose on the back of her neck as she studied the display. There were five offered, different models, different prices, and she didn’t know. She didn’t want to have to-

She turned away, inexplicably depressed, but the pacifiers caught her glance and her smile flickered back to life. 

Castle would like these too, she thought. And okay, not that it mattered if Castle liked it, but wasn’t it okay to feel at ease when she thought of how this man loved his sons? Her sons, their sons. 

Her confidence grew as she walked, and not because her feelings were rooted in Castle. No. She could do this. She was doing this. Castle wasn’t right here, hovering at her side, was he? He had turned off to do his own thing and she was making these decisions on her own - just not alone.

On her own, but not alone.

That was the difference.

Time to find him. She could drag Castle back to this aisle and make him go over it with her. Not alone. She could still make the choice on her own - she already was; he had tried to convince her it wasn’t necessary - but she didn’t have to be alone to face a row of breast pumps. 

Plus, Castle might have to ‘help’ her with it anyway. Wouldn’t that be fun?

(No. She couldn’t possibly see how it might be fun to pump breastmilk but damn if she wasn’t going to try.)

\-----

Castle switched the basket to his left hand and reached out with his right to snag Kate’s elbow. She paused at the edge of the aisle and glanced back at him, but he only wanted to hold her hand.

She glanced at his fingers as they laced with hers, and then she lifted her head and smiled at him. God, it gutted him out. That curl of her lips and the light in her eyes. She lifted her free hand and pushed her hair back behind her ear, a half shrug of her shoulders.

“So,” she muttered at him, and she bumped her hip into his. “I found some stuff.”

“I’m glad,” he said, smiling again. She had dragged him along the aisle and made him agonize over breast pumps with her, but now that it was in the basket, decided and done, she seemed to regain some confidence.

Almost like she was free to think about other things now.

“Oh, I need lotion,” she said suddenly, and she tugged him around the corner towards the far side of the store. “Oh, God, lotion. I used to come out of the shower and slather it all over myself. Legs, arms-” She glanced back at him, a wicked grin on her face. “-breasts.”

“Well, hell,” he croaked. 

“You can be my tester,” she said, the corner of her lips curled up. She pulled him down the aisle towards the front and they stood in front of the vast array of women’s skin cream. 

“What’s a tester?” he said, eyeing the display with dread.

“Make you sniff all of the different kinds and help me decide.”

“Ah,” Castle said, reaching out for a tube with bees on it. He popped open the top and sniffed. “Really, it’s not about scent.”

She glanced at him, a different bottle in her hands, passing it under her nose. “It’s not?”

“Nope.”

She gestured for him to explain, closed up the bottle with a wrinkle of her nose. “Not scent.

“It’s about taste. You need me for a taste tester.”

“Taste?” she said, lips curling, looking at him from the side of her eyes. “What the hell-”

“If you slather lotion all over your body, Kate Beckett, it better fucking taste good.”

Her cheeks suffused with pink, her mouth dropped open, but a laugh burst out of her. 

He grinned and wrapped his arm her neck, dragged her against his side. “What do you say?”

She shoved on his ribs, trying worm out of his grip. “You really wanna taste all of these lotions, Castle? Fine. Go right ahead.”

He glanced at the shelves and shelves of product and sighed. “No.” He let himself sound mournful. “I guess not.” He let go of Kate and handed her the one with bees on it. “Try this.”

She flipped open the top and sniffed, shrugged. “It’s okay. But I remember this - Burt’s Bees - and it’s got this weird, greasy-”

“All right, fine. I’m just saying the honey - that’s a good smell. You know I like honey.”

She glanced at him, her lips twitching. “Uh-huh.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her with his best and most ridiculous leer, and she giggled and dug an elbow into his ribs. He reached for another lotion bottle at random and flipped it open.

“Oh, ew,” he grunted, jerking back to eye the ingredients. “No. I’m telling you right now, Beckett, if you get lotion with fucking cucumber in it. No.”

She laughed and nudged him aside. “Let me pick the lotion, and then I’ll get your approval after I’ve narrowed it down. You ass.”

He grinned as she turned away from him, liking the snark, loving the snark, and watched her reach for a different row of lotions. Lavender and sandalwood and - ha! - honey.

Castle stepped up behind her, casually skimmed his fingers at her back, slipping in under her shirt to touch her bare skin. He felt her shiver as he leaned in, put his mouth to her ear.

“You know,” he said slowly, his voice dipping low. “There is such a thing as edible massage lotion.”

\-----

They drove home in a downpour, a serious thunderstorm - lightning, thunder, torrential rains. But Castle drove with complete ease, his skill in evidence as he avoided downed limbs and plowed through flooded sections of he highway. He never batted an eye, even held the wheel casually, as if the rain didn’t bother him a bit.

Kate had driven; she had her license. But her experience was limited to escaping the city on the way to family in Connecticut - or moving the parked car to a different street during rush hour so they wouldn’t get a ticket.

She hadn’t driven that much, really. No need in New York City. A storm like this... she’d have pulled over.

Castle shifted in his seat but it was only a prelude to turning off the road and onto the gravel drive, an impressive feat in the sheets of rain that obscured the world. She had no idea how he’d seen it, but they bumped easily under the trees where the rainfall whipped across the side of the car.

Kate realized she was gripping the seatbelt and she made herself loosen her fingers, let go. She took in a breath as trees loomed in the grey darkness of late afternoon, the rain battering the metal frame of the Land Rover.

It sounded like being in the inside of a drum.

“Hey, dinner tonight? I was going to do chicken and mashed potatoes,” he said, pitching voice to be heard over the rain. “How’s that sound?”

“Good,” she got out, nodding. She refused to grip the door handle. It was fine. “The boys might like the mashed potatoes. And if the chicken is tender enough, shredded?”

“Yeah, I can do that for them,” he said, nodding. He twisted the wheel and she went rigid, but was only angling the car close to the bridge. “I’ll leave it parked here. We still have to make a run for it.”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding as her heart thundered.

“Hey, mean to ask - you feel the boys yet? Is it... back now or something?”

She twisted her fingers in the seatbelt as she unclasped it. “I don’t know. I think so. I honestly didn’t notice them suddenly show up in my head, but yeah. Yes. I’m-”

Kate pressed her fingers into her sternum, frowning as she peered through the rain. 

“What is it?” he said. He was leaning back between the seats and collecting their bags. “You have a funny look on your face.”

She rubbed her sternum and a bolt of lightning lit up the sky, followed closely by thunder that seemed to rip from one side of the world to the other.

Kate sucked in a breath. “They’re afraid. Of the storm. They’re afraid of the storm, Castle-” She shoved open the car door, pushing through the opening only to have wind jerk it out of her hands. She jumped to the gravel and stumbled, left the car door open as she darted down the bridge towards the house.

She vaguely heard the thump of a car door, another echo after it, and then she felt the boards vibrating under her shoes as Castle came up behind her. She ran the whole way, flying towards the front door, rain streaming through her hair and into her eyes, soaking her to the skin, but she didn’t care.

She grabbed the door and yanked, and it resisted for a moment before flying open. Kate ran inside and slid in the entry, her shoes slick with rain, dripping wet, and she could hear them.

Both boys. Crying. Beyond terrified.

Kate ran forward, had to bend over and hop on one foot as she tugged off first one shoe and then the other. She pitched them back towards the kitchen even as she rounded the corner to the living room-

“Mama, mama, mama,” they were both sobbing, Wyatt in hiccups so that he could barely get it out.

“Wyatt,” she called out. “James. It’s okay.” Colin, with both boys in his arms, turned towards her, relief washing over his face so fast she felt it, and she rushed towards them.

“Kate, don’t fucking carry them,” Castle bellowed behind her.

She arrested her movement for half a second, and then completely ignored him, reaching for the closest boy and dragging him into her chest.

The babies were still crying, fat tears down their face, their fear of the storm and her absence shifting now to something she felt against her lungs like desperation. Hysteria. But she couldn’t let them drown her in it; she couldn’t. She had to stay calm so that they could be calm.

“Kate,” Colin growled above the boys’ tears. “Kate, damn it. Castle is gonna kill me - sit down.”

But Castle was already there, a towering furious pissed off man - CIA agent - and he snatched Wyatt out of her arms and pushed her towards the couch. She was soaking wet, and he was too, and Wyatt was sobbing against Castle’s shoulder, gripping him hard. But Colin bent over her and let James flip out of his arms and into her lap and she gathered the boy up against her even as Castle sat down beside her.

Wyatt ditched Castle and climbed right up into her arms, hanging on to her neck even as James did the same. Both boys, tears wetting their faces so that they were half as drenched as she was, and their sobs cutting off with sucked in breaths, crying her name.

Thunder rolled overhead and Wyatt squealed, almost a scream, and she realized, dumbly, horrifyingly, that not once in three years had she ever heard the weather outside. 

It must have been insulated. So no one would ever hear her scream.

“They’ve never heard a storm before,” she said, kicking her foot at Colin as he rolled his eyes. “They can’t help it.”

Colin backed off, abandoned them there on the couch. She had both arms tight around the boys, kissing their cheeks, murmuring reassurances in their ears, trying to keep her own sense of self inviolate, calm, under control.

They didn’t seem to be able to stop. They might be feeding off each other.

Kate twisted her body towards Castle, sharing the weight of the boys. He had a heartbroken look on his face - that what can I do to help? - and she started prying James’s finger away from her hair.

“Carry them into your room, where the windows aren’t so dominant. I want to strip out of my wet clothes too. Castle?”

He seemed to jerk his attention back to her; he’d been petting the boys, wiping the tears off their cheeks like they might help. 

“Castle. Carry them into your room.”

He nodded, almost absent-mindedly, and he wrapped both arms around James and Wyatt, stood up with them. Kate quickly followed, kissing the outflung hand as James tried to reach for her.

“It’s okay,” she soothed. “We’re all okay. Daddy’s got you. We’ll cuddle up on the bed and we’ll all calm down. Castle, you hear me? You too. You have to get yourself together.”

In the hall, he glanced back at her, a grim understanding in his eyes. Wyatt was screeching for her again, like the six inches of distance was inexcusable. She came in closer as they walked, bumping against Castle’s back, laid her hand on Wyatt’s head.

“It’s okay, guys. It’s just a storm. Lots of rain and loud noises, and the creek will get big again. Just a lot of water. Like the shower.”

Castle went straight to the bed and crawled in with both boys, and Kate quickly stripped off her soaked shirt, tugged down her shorts as they stuck to her. James was the one that broke her heart, really, his tears rolling fat down his cheeks, the abandonment in his eyes. He’d stopped asking for her too, though if it was just because she was here or if it was something more terrible, she didn’t know.

Kate yanked one of Castle’s t-shirts over her head and crawled into bed with them, curling up close to his side and wrapping her arm around the boys. “You change too,” she told Castle, kissing the little faces as they pressed closer to her. “You’re soaked. We’ll all just curl up together.”

Castle seemed reluctant to let go, but he finally did, standing to strip his clothes as well. James was burying his face in her side, and Wyatt was standing on her thigh as if he might climb her torso, but Castle was practically naked in the middle of the room.

Boxers briefs only. The material was so tight she could see the outline of his cock and the huge expanse of his thighs. He was tugging on clean shorts, and now a t-shirt that matched the one she’d stolen, and he came back to them in the bed.

“Mama,” James cried against her, a little hopeless mewl after it. Wyatt was still chanting her name every time lightning licked the sky. 

Castle took Wyatt from her and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders. She leaned in against him so that both boys could still touch her, and she smoothed James’s hair down, kissing the top of his head while Castle tried to comfort Wyatt.

But he looked wretched. Both of them. Castle and Wyatt together, a miserable picture. And she knew without a doubt they couldn’t do that. James was feeding off Wyatt and Castle was feeding off the boys, and they all four were this interconnected mess. 

Kate turned her head and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Castle’s jaw, flicked her tongue across his scruff until she could bite with her teeth. He jerked at her contact, his body shuddering like she’d palmed his cock.

She blew softly at his ear. “You have to get control of yourself, Rick. Let them feel this isn’t a big deal.”

Castle groaned, tilting his head back against the headboard. “This is a fucking big deal,” he croaked. “Do that again.”

She grinned and scraped her teeth against his jaw, tugged a little at his scruff as she bit him.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“There you go,” she whispered, a lingering kiss on his neck. She turned her head to glance at the boys and saw Wyatt had a death grip on Castle’s shirt but his sobs had turned to whimpers and moans. 

She cradled James and stroked his back slowly, projecting calm and peace, how she used to love to curl up in the window and watch a thunderstorm in her parents’ house. The lightning forked in the sky. The thunder cracking the clouds.

She traced lightning designs on James’s back, laid her other hand on Wyatt’s so he could feel her too. Even if Wyatt wasn’t the one like Colin, it couldn’t hurt to push her calm off onto him as well.

She really was calm. As soon as she’d realized that her edginess, her twisted gut feeling was coming from inside the house and not herself, it was almost easy to close it off. Like closing a door. 

James let out a shuddering sigh and lifted his head. “Mama,” he said tearfully, most of the tears in his eyes and not falling.

“I’m here,” she told him, touching a soft kiss to his forehead. “It’s a thunderstorm, sweetheart. And it can’t hurt us.”

She felt movement under her other hand and glanced to Wyatt; he had turned his head against Castle’s chest to watch her.

“We’re all okay,” she told him. “It’s just a lot of water coming down from the sky all at once. Just had the bad luck to happen while Daddy and I left. But we’re all here together now.”

The second the words left her mouth, the sky broke open with a horrendous clap of thunder and the room lit violently with lightning.

James gasped, stiffening in her arms.

But Wyatt sobbed, “Daddy!” and flung himself against Castle.

And then Castle was crying too.

\-----

“Oh, God,” she laughed helplessly, trying not to. She didn’t mean to laugh at him, but it was- “Come here. Castle, come here.” 

She squirmed closer to him and unwound her arm from Wyatt to slide it around Castle’s neck. She pulled him down against her, and he came, leaning in with the boys practically crushed between them.

She stroked her fingers at his nape and kissed his temple, dusting her lips down to his cheek. “It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” she murmured. “I know.”

Castle nodded. He still clutched Wyatt with both arms, and she had James clinging to her shirt and shuddering whenever the thunder boomed. 

“It’s my fault,” she hummed softly. “I’ve been talking to them about you.” She curled her hand up and scratched her fingers at his scalp, the short fuzz above his ear. He had a military hair cut, in some ways, but a flop of hair rested over his forehead, too long to really be regulation.

Castle cleared his throat and let out a shaky breath, turned his head to lay against her shoulder. “You have?”

“You’re - their dad,” she mumbled. “I... you seemed wiling to-”  
“I am,” he growled. “More than.” He was hoarse with emotion. “I never expected to be - claimed.”

The pause in his words tightened her heart. She still had her arm crooked around his neck, and she dragged her fingers over his ear to his neck. “Me neither,” she admitted. She had loved them from the first, but they in turn had loved her back. “They have a force of will that’s gonna surprise you.”

“Like their mother,” he husked.

Or their dad. She tilted her head down to kiss his forehead. Waited there with her lips pressed against his skin. All four of them breathing out of sync but settling down, the boys cowering, little whimpers, while Castle said nothing. “You okay?”

Nothing for a moment. 

And then, “Yeah.” His hand came up and caressed the back of Wyatt’s head. Both of the boys had curled in between them, pressed against each other like puppies, their bodies still tense with every noise from the thunderstorm. “I... never had anyone...”

She waited for an explanation, for him to qualify his statement - had anyone what? - but he didn’t. That was all there was to it. He’d never had anyone.

James shuddered with a sigh and his body released its rigidity, melting against her, limb by limb. A peal of thunder ripped outside, and Wyatt whimpered, but James was easy. Castle sighed and shifted, beginning to sit up again, and Kate released him, unwinding her arm from his neck.

She’d wondered if he would be embarrassed, if he would try to play it off, but he didn’t seem to care. Surfeit of emotion, and he just calmly rubbed his thumb under his eyes, wiping the moisture from his cheeks. 

Castle glanced at James, gave her a rough-looking smile. “He’s about to fall asleep.”

“He’s probably overwhelmed too,” Kate said. “Putting up with all of us.”

“Yeah. Me alone - knock him right out.”

She offered a smile back, reached up to touch the flop of bangs on his forehead, pushing it back. His eyes drooped, lids closing, and her chest expanded, flowering, blooming, a burst of feeling that made her want him.

God, she wanted him. 

Scared the shit out of her, this feeling, this intensity. It overrode her normal, defensive instincts. Instincts that had kept her alive for three years.

Kate rubbed her thumb over his eyebrow. “Come here.”

He opened his eyes, blinking slowly, and then he pitched forward into her again and she caught him with her fingers, angled his lips to hers. His mouth was hot and salt-licked, and she stroked her tongue slowly inside.

Wyatt wriggled and jostled his brother, and James grunted something, wrestling back, but Kate couldn’t begin to care. Castle’s mouth on hers, the gratefulness of his kiss, was like mercy.

At her mercy. 

She pushed her thumb in against their lips and he groaned, pulled back only far enough to breathe roughly at her cheek. She held him off, she held him off, in control of his need, his vulnerable heart.

Wyatt’s daddy. 

Kate grinned and crushed her mouth against his, fiercely claiming him, wanting him, their teeth colliding. The storm pounded against the castle and howled, throwing rain and lightning through the sky, while the thunder voiced its complaints, and still she kissed him.

He’d never had anyone, but she had him.

She had him.

\-----


	26. Chapter 26

At the squeal of surprise from Wyatt, Kate turned her head and glanced into the living room just in time to see Colin chasing the boy around the couch. James, though, had come crawling into the kitchen an hour ago, and he had sat down at her feet, his thumb in his mouth and his head tilted back to lean against her shins. They were both watching Castle cook dinner.

Wyatt had recovered from the storm, but James...

She bent down and ruffled his hair, and James knocked his head into her leg, cuddling up to her jeans. 

“Hey, that bag of stuff is on the counter,” Castle said. His own gaze had followed hers down to James. “The pacifiers.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Kate leaned back against the granite and stretched, barely able to snag the plastic and drag it over to her. James was literally sitting on her feet. 

She broke into the plastic packaging and ripped out the first pacifier she got her fingers on - boob man - and she bent down over James. Her back bumped the cabinets as she did, nearly toppling her off balance, but she caught herself and sat down, dragging James into her lap on the kitchen floor.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she said quietly, cuddling him. She pressed her cheek to his, her arms framing his body in her lap. His thumb came out of his mouth and he turned into her, but he didn’t seem weepy or emotional. Just tired.

“He okay?” Castle said, still at the stove as he browned the chicken.

“Yeah, he’s okay,” Kate answered. “I’m wondering if the emotional stuff hasn’t really wiped him out. He’s had to deal with a lot in the last few days.”

“Good point.”

“Here, Jay. Try this instead of your thumb.” Kate teased his lips with the rounded edge of the pacifier, bumped it inside his mouth. “Pacifier. You like it?”

James blinked at her from behind the round button of the pacifier, his blue eyes so beautiful against his dark hair and rounded cheeks. 

Kate wrapped her arms around him and leaned in, hovering over his eyes until they closed reflexively and she could kiss each lid. She felt the moment he started sucking on the pacifier and then the release it seemed to give him, the way he slumped down against her.

“There you go, baby,” she murmured, feeling better herself. Obviously the boys affected her, this one in particular, and maybe her own tension at the scene they’d found this afternoon had kept her on the edge.

But this worked.

“He likes it.”

Kate glanced up and smiled at him. “Think so. Seems to help anyway.”

Castle replaced the fork on the counter and squatted down next to them, gently eased James out of her arms. She stood up as Castle straightened, watching James as he peered at her from Castle’s shoulder.

“You got him for a while?” she asked, rubbing her hand at Castle’s back as if she could transmit the sensation and the soothing to James.

She didn’t know why she was doing that, but when she stopped, Castle sighed. “Yeah, I got him. Chicken is done. Next is just waiting on the mashed potatoes to boil.”

“I’m going to put up the stuff we bought,” she told him, leaning in and kissing James’s nose just to see him smile. He did, his lips spreading and the pacifier almost falling out. She had to catch it, and James grunted, using his own hand to cram the thing back in his mouth.

“Yeah, the other bags might be on the floor past the counter,” Castle told her. “Leave the nutrition stuff in here. I’m going to make you a milkshake with the strawberry protein powder. I swear it won’t be the sludge.”

She grinned and patted James’s back, and then she went up on her toes and kissed Castle’s crooked, serious mouth. “Thanks, babe. You’re sweet.”

He gave her a startled look, but she turned away, grabbing the bag from the counter and fishing out the vitamins. A second bag from Walgreens was on the floor and she bent over, scooped it up, intending to look for the third.

But Castle hooked the back of her jeans with a finger and dragged her back, making her laugh. He kept her close, his finger twisting in her belt loop, and he leaned over and kissed her.

She hummed as his tongue stroked against hers, reveled in the heat and strength of him as he took his kiss.

It was over all too soon, and she opened her eyes, stared up at him.

Castle released her jeans, his hand skimming her midriff as he moved his arm back around James. “Now, go,” he said quietly.

And she obeyed.

\-----

Castle settled in with James in his lap and hand-fed the boy shredded chicken from his own plate. James opened like a baby bird, but otherwise he was listless and quiet. At the other end of the table, Wyatt was sitting up on his knees in a chair at the table, animated and even talking - babytalk only, no real words, but definitely trying to approximate language. Kate was laughing at his antics, the way he hammed it up for them, and she was trying to coax him to eat the chicken.

Wyatt seemed a lot more set on mashed potatoes. Castle hadn’t been willing to put much more than milk and salt in them, but Kate had come in behind him and added butter. He had to admit; they were pretty damn good. Her mother had made them like this, she’d told him.

Castle wiped his fingers on his napkin and picked up another piece of dry chicken, pushed it against James’s mouth. The boy craned his neck for it, gobbling it down, and then rested back in Castle’s lap.

Was James sick? He couldn’t be - his genetics made that almost impossible. And it was those same genetics Castle worried about. Kate hadn’t breastfed them since last night, and Castle had been looking at their medical records from the facility. He didn’t think there were any problems. 

Could it be only the emotional day taking its toll?

Kate glanced their way, their eyes met as she shrugged. She didn’t know what else to do with the kid either.

Castle put a small bite of mashed potatoes on the baby spoon - a bright green plastic thing Kate had picked up at Walgreens - and then he circled James’s lips with it, trying to tempt him.

But James wouldn’t take it. Castle ate the potatoes off the baby spoon himself, made satisfied noises just to see if that would lure the kid. It didn’t. James stayed leaning against Castle’s chest, limp as a noodle.

“All right, chicken it is. I understand. It’s good for you, so I won’t object. Here.” Castle pushed another bite into the boy’s mouth and James’s little tongue touched his thumb as he took it. “Good job, kiddo. If chicken is all you’ll eat, I think you’ll survive. Plus Mommy will feed you tonight before bed. And I know you like that. Your pacifier told me so.”

The pacifier in question was lying beside Castle’s plate. Boob Man. He chuckled to himself, risking a look to Kate. 

Her breasts were really very full. Ripe. She hadn’t nursed all day. It had to ache, her breasts filled with milk she hadn’t nursed, the whole fucking trauma of the day. But she was feeding Wyatt mashed potatoes and green beans like it didn’t matter.

Ah. Right. Because she fully intended to use that damn breast pump.

Fuck.

He wasn’t looking forward to that.

Castle plucked a green bean from his own plate and offered it to James. “Try this, kid. You need some folic acid.”

James obediently opened his mouth and Castle popped it inside. The kid screwed up his face but then he set about chewing, his eyes wary but his mouth working. He looked like he was exploring the new taste.

“Good job,” Castle breathed. “Apparently Mommy wants you to eat as much as you can so that you don’t have to nurse for quite so long.” He waited a beat before popping another green bean into James’s mouth. “And to be honest, I get a little jealous watching you. So maybe that means more for me.”

James glanced up at him, head tilting back, and damn if that wasn’t accusation on his face.

Castle laughed and landed a rough kiss to the top of James’s head. “Never mind, son. Just eat what you can.”

\-----

“James is out,” he told her quietly.

Kate nodded, watching Wyatt as he nursed, unwilling to lift her head. Unwilling or unable? Hard to tell; she was so tired. It had crept up on her during dinner and now she wasn’t sure she would be able to stay awake long enough to express milk.

“What do you need, Kate?” he murmured, still hovering beside the bed. He had propped her up with Wyatt so that he could take James upstairs to bed. She was half-slumped into the pillows that also took Wyatt’s weight, and she knew it, but she couldn’t bring herself to upright.

“Just some water. Or juice,” she said, finally dragging her eyes up to his.

He looked worried. Tender. It made her want to break something. 

Instead she cleared her throat and offered him a weak smile. “I’m just tired. A glass of water would be good.”

“Of course,” he said. He leaned in and brushed his hand over Wyatt’s head, and just that easily, slid his fingers along to her arm. Holding her there while he kissed her. “Almost time for bed, I think.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. 

“Be right back.”

Castle disappeared back down the short hall towards the common spaces, and Kate let her head tilt back to the headboard, close her eyes. Wyatt’s nursing had been lazy at first anyway, and she knew she’d fed him enough mashed potatoes to fill him up, but she stayed while he stayed.

Her arms could barely hold him up. Maybe exhausted was a good way to go into the breast pumping. Double electric, no less. Castle had said, just get it over with. But that had been the same kind in the facility, and she should’ve said no. She should’ve picked the hand pump, the single hand pump, and just gone slowly.

But it meant more time pumping, and he was right about wanting to get it over with. 

Castle came back with a glass of water and another of juice, and she had to smile for his eagerness to please. He settled the glasses on her side table (hers? when had that happened?), and then he crawled over her and into bed on the other side.

“He’s done,” Castle told her, a hand out to catch Wyatt’s bare foot. “Look at him. His lips are slack.”

But he would rouse and nurse again-

No, Castle was right. She was putting this off. “Will you take him upstairs?”

He was already shifting Wyatt away from her, his arms strong and secure with the boy nestled in the crook of his elbow. Castle gave her a rough kiss on the forehead and straightened up. “Don’t start without me.”

He practically vaulted up the stone steps, and she watched until he was out of sight, glanced to the box at the foot of the bed. She had no intention of waiting on Castle - she wasn’t afraid to do it alone - but apparently he was fast and she was taking her sweet time because he got back to the bedroom before she could even open the box.

Castle settled in beside her and reached out to help, grabbing the bottom of the box while she pulled out the pump.

“Hell,” he croaked, just looking at it.

She giggled. It sounded a little hysterical even to herself, but his comment had broken the ice. She moved easier now, putting the pump together, peeling the sanitized strips off the pads, adjusting the canisters. 

“This is like a horror movie,” Castle muttered, getting off the bed with the cord in his hand. He plugged it in first and then came back on the bed and inserted the adaptor into the base of the first pump. “What the fuck. Kate.”

“People do this,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the wide-angled mouth of the pump. It looked like a spray bottle with a flared horn for a nozzle. “I mean, lots of women do this because they go back to work and they still want their babies breast fed. It’s normal.”

“But they did it to you without your permission in that damn fucking-”

“So?” she said, elbowing him off of her. “It has to be done.”

“It doesn’t have to be done,” he growled. His hands gave up the breast pump to her and he got out of bed, pacing. 

She ignored him and opened up the instruction booklet that had come inside the box, reading over it carefully.

“Come here,” he said, his voice gruff. He took the instruction book from her and grabbed her by the upper arm, hauling her to her feet. “I read it while you were finishing dinner.”

“What?” She followed him automatically, habit kicking in, years of training. But she followed, even knowing that was the reason why. “What are you-”

“We have to wash the shields first,” he said. 

The shields? Oh, those mouths.

“And wash our hands.”

“Our hands.”

He gave her a look, daring her to tempt him, to rebel, and while the revolt was still in her, he was helping her out. He was helping her get her way.

Castle flipped on the water and rinsed the detachable mouths of the breast pump under its warm flow, nudged her to get moving. She did almost mechanically, washing her hands in soap and water, drying them on a clean towel from the linen closet. Castle finished washing the shields, laid them to dry on the towel she spread out. 

Her top half was naked; she was only wearing underwear. Her nipples puckered as he took a long, slow inventory in the mirror, and then he turned to her. His hands came to her hips, warm weights, and he stroked his fingers along her skin.

Her body lit up for him, blooming like heat.

“Read the instruction booklet while I dry these off.” Still his hands pressed against her hips, weighting her down. “I don’t - it’s not up to me, Kate, and I get that. You want to be sure they have milk if something happens. You want to not be tied down to nursing them like clockwork, be free to come and go. I do understand. I just - I don’t want you hurt.”

“It’s not supposed to hurt,” she murmured. Her throat was closing up. His hands were lovely anchors, settling her down.

“No, it’s not,” he sighed. His hands tugged and then his arms wrapped around her in an embrace, hugging her against him. She went because she didn’t know what else to do, or how to convince him it had to happen - or convince herself.

He was warm and his body was strong against her, he squeezed as if he might pick her up off her feet, but he didn’t. He just held her up.

And held her. Asking nothing.

When she stepped back, he let her go. There were twin damp spots on his shirt where her breasts had leaked.

\-----

“Hold the shields,” she told him, her voice a faintness in the dark room. He’d turned out the lights, put himself behind her in the bed, and now she was instructing him just as the booklet had said.

He was aroused, and he knew she could feel it there at the small of her back, almost at her ass, and he thought it made her relax. She knew what to do with him; she knew him. The breast pump was - he hoped - merely an interesting diversion to their night.

What had become their usual night. Exploring each other.

He cupped the shields, releasing the containers that were attached. She sighed and her body, though stiff, pressed back against him. He had taken off his shirt and they were skin to skin now, and he thought it was helping.

“Turn it on?” he said.

She did it herself, the little push-button start, and the pump whined for a moment before it seemed to settle in. Kate flinched when it began, driving back deeper in his arms, but he lowered his head and softly kissed her jaw, that place behind her ear.

Slowly, she relaxed.

Or rather, she wasn’t rigid any longer. Merely expectant.

“The instructions said,” she started, a breathy noise in her voice. It was the sound of someone inwardly cringing. 

“What did the instructions say?” he prompted. He’d read them obsessively when she had been finishing dinner. He’d washed off the boys faces and hands, kept one eye on them in the bedroom while he’d read the booklet.

“Instructions said to relax and think about nursing, about the boys, so that hormones would incite milk production.”

“You don’t feel very relaxed,” he murmured, his lips against the tension in her jaw.

“Not really,” she huffed, a little laugh at the end that he hoped wasn’t desperate. “I’m supposed to - um - do things, think about things, that make milk, and it would - help - I think it would help if you touched me.”

“Always,” he said immediately. Her body actually relaxed at that, easing somewhat. “Your body, your breasts, where, love?”

She let out a breath. “I can hold the shields,” she said. Her voice was low, rich with awakening. He loved that quality of texture and sex she got when she was aroused. “If you’ll just...”

“Touch you,” he murmured. He released the pump to her, ignoring the sounds it made in its electric torture, and he flared his fingers over the sides of her breasts.

Kate relaxed. Just that fast, that instantly. His hands skimmed her ribs and stroked over her belly, bumping the attached canisters with their warm milk already coating the bottom. She was muscle and strength at his chest, but already the heat of his body was being transferred into her, already she was melting against him.

He teased the edge of her underwear, the black silk pair he had bought for her in a bid to smooth over her distress at having forgotten. “You like these?” he murmured.

“Mm-hm.” She nodded and turned her head into him. “Like these.”

“Me too. I imagined you wearing them.”

“Yeah?”

“I like the color,” he admitted. “Better on you.”

She smiled. He felt the edge of her lips against the curve of his shoulder. She drew in a deep breath and let out a faint noise.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” she whispered. “Not at all.”

“Did it used to?”

She shifted against him. “Yes.” Short, clipped.

Pumping when she was dehydrated. That’s what he’d read. Pumping breast milk when dehydrated or when the milk wouldn’t let down because of stress. 

He wanted to fucking blow up the whole damn world. He was so furious that it ate inside him, acid boring through his guts, and he knew his body was trembling.

“But this doesn’t hurt at all,” she sighed. “It feels... I don’t know.”

“Good?”

“Not... I don’t know.” She pressed her cheek down against his shoulder. “You make me feel good. Despite this. That’s what I feel.”

His throat closed up. Castle laid his chin to the top of her head and tried to control everything that wanted to spill out of him. His love, his undying loyalty, his oath, his world.

Instead he smoothed his trembling hands against her inside thighs, and then rubbed his palms back up to her stomach and sides. He made designs on her ribs and thumbed the knobs at the top of her shoulders. He caressed the warm bulge of her breasts at the pump, circling around and around as her breath caught, teasing that line between good and dangerous.

When the bottles had filled, she was the one who noticed, letting out a sharp noise and pushing out her chest, and he saw the milk leaking in the cups, against the shields. She turned the pump off and pulled the shields away, already carefully detaching the bottles and screwing on their caps.

Castle was transfixed by her breasts, the red ring from the suction cup, the smear of milk over her skin. When she moved to put away the pump, he craned his neck and lowered his head.

He opened his mouth over her breast and suckled.

\-----

Kate nearly fumbled the milk. His mouth was hot over her skin, his tongue pushing her nipple against his teeth. She groaned and clutched his ear, her pulse thundering.

She managed to put the bottles on the side table, and then she gripped his shoulder and sprawled on her back. She felt his knee between her shoulder blades as he devoured her, tugging the last drops of milk from her breast.

“Castle,” she cried out.

He lifted his head and licked up along her sternum to her throat. “You taste so damn good.”

“Oh, God.”

He kissed her, sealing her mouth with his so that she tasted the milk on his lips and tongue. She moaned into him, and he dragged himself on top of her in the bed, fusing their bodies. Skin to skin. 

She flung an arm around his neck and managed to hit the breast pump, owing into his mouth as it struck, and Castle shoved it off the bed and went down to her breasts again. She arched into him, moaning, her womb fluttering deep, anxious for it, for it, whatever it was, whatever it could be, whatever she could get throwing herself against the rigid length of his erection.

Break herself against him.

She wanted to be broken to pieces.

“Slow down, slow down,” he growled, nipping her breast in his teeth.

“You’re not slowing down,” she gasped, hips bucking up into him. “Oh, God, do that again. Do that again, Castle, do-”

He grazed her nippled with his teeth and she cried out, whimpering as the sensation tightened through her body. Castle growled again and bit the slope of her breast, came up along her rapidly-beating heart and suckled at her skin.

“Rick,” she gasped, clutching at the broad expanse of his back. She ached so badly it wouldn’t work, this wouldn’t work. “Fuck me. You have to fuck me. Just-”

“Shut up, Beckett,” he snapped. His teeth dug into her skin and he lifted his head, tugging. She cried out, arching in a spine-breaking bow to the incessant clutch of her sex. 

“But I want-”

“No,” he hissed. His eyes came up in the darkness to meet hers, the blue flame of his gaze burning across her. “Do not ask me to hurt you that way. Irreparably. Don’t ask me.” Castle lowered his forehead to her chest and moaned, the sensation tickling her nipples. “One day I won’t be able to say no to you. Please don’t ask. I couldn’t live with myself.”

She cradled his head and the back of his neck, her heart pounding fiercely, skittering panic lacing through her ribs. “I can’t help it,” she choked out, swallowing hard. “I can’t make it stop.”

She felt him take in a deep breath, like he was steadying himself, like he had to be something other than he was just to survive her, and her heart caved in.

Castle lifted his head - but he lowered his hips against her, crushing her pelvis with his full weight. She groaned, that panic fluttering up through her ribs and lodging in her throat, her body aching for him.

She wanted him so badly. She could cry with the ache of it. 

Kate widened her thighs and tried to hook her ankles around his back, but he had pressed so hard into her that she could barely move.

He was staring at her, lust like a fire in his eyes. His skin was flame where it touched her, every place, until her every breath was burning.

“I’m fucking you the moment we can,” he said. His voice was ragged. “Fucking you so hard, Kate Beckett, you won’t be able to walk.”

“That might be the other way around,” she scraped. “Just you wait.”

His eyes lit up with that sharp spark of want, amusement and need colliding. One corner of his mouth curled up, almost nasty, and her heart pounded at the confident, cocky sexiness of his face.

“Just you wait,” he repeated. Castle crawled slowly up her body until he hovered above her, his hips to her hips, his thighs pressing down her thighs, his ribs pushing into her ribs. He planted his elbows near her shoulders and gripped the back of her head with both hands, slowly lowered his mouth to hers.

But he didn’t kiss her.

His breath caressed her lips, his nose skimming her own. She couldn’t tell if he was looking at her, too close to see him, but she could feel the jackhammer of his heart all through his body.

“Just you wait,” he husked. “Until then, Beckett, I’m going to mark every inch of your skin with my mouth. And then-”

Kate bucked her hips into him, used her momentum and training to flip them over. She straddled his hips and squeezed, her hands pinning his wrists over his head.

The surprise flared hotly to lust.

She grinned down at him. “And then,” she told him. “I’m going to fucking mark you.”

\-----

Her mouth was all over him, her hot, wet mouth. Castle grunted and tried to keep his eyes open, wanting desperately to keep his eyes on her. That glorious flare of confidence and sex as she scraped her teeth against his nipple. He realized he was gripping her too tightly and tried to let go, but it was impossible.

“Kate,” he groaned.

She worked his skin in her teeth to the point of pain, but her abs were hard, tensile heat over his cock. Just the bare material of his boxers between his skin and hers, and yet he felt her there, felt the intention of her whole body towards him.

She licked his navel and sucked lightly at the skin above his hip.

“Kate.”

She grinned against his stomach and teased her fingers along the waist of his boxers. 

“Fuck, Kate,” he growled, hips jerking at her touch. He had to release her shoulders to let her drag her body down his, but he caught skeins of her hair in his fingers, entranced by the softness, the web.

She laid her cheek against his stomach and kissed him softly. Her bare breasts pressed against his thighs, her body tangled with him just as her hair was in his fingers. He combed it back and stroked the waves away from her face, revealing the fall of her lashes and the sweep of her cheekbone.

“You’re so beautiful,” he husked. His hand laid heavy at the back of her head, caught in her hair. She rose and fell with his breathing, like a wave, and then her body curled up and straddled his.

She sat up over him and he lost the silk wave of her hair, but he could see the pink flush of her cheeks and the want in her eyes. She stroked up his chest, tickled his nipples, and then rocked her hips lewdly against him. Castle groaned, gripping her tightly by the thighs, and she laughed.

“Not fucking funny,” he choked out. 

“Mmm.” Her fingers flicked his nipples and scratched down his ribs to his waist, circling lightly there, around his stomach, down to his waistband. “Maybe not funny, but certainly fun.”

He watched her with heavy eyes, unable to speak, weighted with the feel of her body, the intent. It wasn’t so much that she was taut skin and tone muscle and the flow of her hair, but it was the circuit of need between them, the flood of connection.

She intended to take him, however she could, and in taking him, she took all of him. His need, his desire, his love.

And she knew it. How could she not know?

Kate caught the waistband of his boxers and peeled them down, as if giving in to the inevitable, as if in agreement.

She knew.

Castle gripped her thighs and lifted his hips, and she shimmied out of his touch to take his boxers down. He tried to sit up to help, but she pressed him back down, turned her back to drag her breasts over him. 

He grunted at the sight of her ass before him, palmed her cheeks and squeezed. Kate faltered, her forehead dipping to his knee, and he grinned and lifted his head to kiss her ass.

“Shit,” she whispered.

“Not while my tongue is on your ass, Beckett.”

She laughed, tossing her hair and she glanced back at him, and she wriggled her ass in his face in retaliation. Castle massaged her flanks, the backs of her thighs, touching and caressing while she yanked his boxers off his feet. But she didn’t turn back around, she stayed reversed, slowly slid her knees to either side of his ribs.

He couldn’t see her face, but oh God, he felt her mouth kiss the head of his cock. Castle cursed and dug his grip into her ass. She hummed as she stroked, her hands, now her mouth, her tongue. He couldn’t see her but he could feel everything, every silky hot swipe of some part of her surrounding him.

Castle could barely move, hardly reciprocate at all, but there was something about the feel of her breasts brushing his stomach, the sway arch of her back, the round and high firm ass under his hands-

“Kate,” he growled in warning, his balls tightening. 

And then her mouth swallowed him down, so far down, sinking into her wet heat, the close tight confines of her tongue moving and pushing against his cock, and he went rigid.

“Kate, fuck, Kate, I can’t-”

He shot off before he could say what he couldn’t, his climax falling like an ax blade - swift and immediate. He was flames, fire, a match struck. He could feel the soothing wet of her mouth around him as she swallowed, the cool relief of her lips and tongue bathing him even through the rictus of orgasm.

His heart was thundering in his ears when he came back to himself. His hands were inert on the mattress, his body heavy. Cock limp and worn out against his thigh. Her fingers stroked and tickled his ribs, her hair brushing over him.

She laid her body against him, skins fusing as her flushed triumph met the melted bliss of his. Castle worked his throat to try to say something, but nothing could break free of his sated stupor.

She kissed his shoulder and spread her thighs over his, settling in. Castle finally contracted his bicep, bringing his arm up around her shoulders with a heavy sigh.

Her fingers slipped designs along his chest, her ear over his heart. He wasn’t falling asleep, but he was something. He was lying here vulnerable to her, but she was sealed over him like a balm.

Like he was the one wounded.

Castle wrapped both arms around her and squeezed, too hard, he knew it was too hard, but he couldn’t do anything else.

She touched a kiss to his neck where she could reach him, another along his collarbone. “Good?” she whispered.

“Oh, God,” he groaned, turning into her, burying himself into her body so that she was under him now. “Kate. My whole world...”

He didn’t know. He wanted to say I love you too, so much but he knew she had no idea what her body said, what her body gave him.

He just laid his body against hers and felt the sweat of her skin and the breath from her lips and it seemed enough. It seemed all she needed. Her arms loosened from around him, her head fell back to the pillow, and she was falling asleep.

He needed to get up and put the breastmilk in the refrigerator; he couldn’t let it go to waste.

\-----

Kate woke with a sharp cry. Blind. Nightmares, darkness, she was restrained. Her heart pounded. 

“Just me, Kate. I put the milk in the fridge.”

“What,” she croaked. Her mouth was dry. Her heart racing. Palms sweating. 

“-cleaned everything, don’t worry. Back to sleep, love.”

“Gotta sit up,” she choked out. 

Instantly, strong hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her upright, and just that fast her breathing eased, her lungs releasing. Unrestricted. 

Castle was standing at the side of the bed, but he let go of her shoulders and stepped back. She took in a cleaner breath, let it out as she scraped her hand through her hair. It was shaking. Her hair was tangled. She felt like shit for some reason.

Bad dream. Heart still unreconciled to its rhythm.

“You up for a while?” he said.

She nodded grimly.

“Come on. Put on some clothes, Beckett. We’ll take a walk.”

She licked her lips, tried to swallow. “Yeah. Give me a sec.”

Castle disappeared out of the room and she got her hands on her knees, took a deeper breath in an effort to regulate her heart. He had agreed she didn’t need to be monitored like a child, the sensor pads under the wire of her bra, but she didn’t want to give him reason to hook her back up again.

The wrist monitor ratted her out entirely too much.

Kate pushed off the mattress and slid her feet to the floor, stood shakily for a moment. Her breasts were loose; she wasn’t even wearing a shirt, only panties. Which were sticky with her arousal. What the hell. She didn’t care. It kind of felt nice, that thickness, the reminder of what they’d done, what she’d felt.

What he did to her.

Kate slinked into the bathroom and flipped on the overhead light, blinking away the glare. She rubbed her fists into her eyes and glanced at her reflection. 

Well, um. Interesting, to say the least.

Her breasts were still that flushed fullness that stayed with her no matter how much she nursed or pumped - they were just permanently lush. She could say that about herself, right? Lush. Her nipples were dusky brown, the tips red from use.

His mouth. On her.

She smirked at herself in the mirror and then avoided the result, ducking her head and turning on the faucets. She splashed water on her face, lashes blinking in the cold, took a breath. 

Kate flipped the light off with water dripping from her fingers, running down her neck. She wiped her eyes on her shoulder as she came back into the bedroom, startled when a shadow loomed before her.

Castle. His hands framed her hips and skated up her spine, his mouth ghosted hers. “Mm, thought you were getting clothes on.”

“Bathroom,” she said, as if it explained anything. Didn’t matter. He was warm and alive in the darkness. “You taste like almonds.”

“It’s your milk,” he husked.

Her body flared hot and she stepped into him, pressing everything against him. He wrapped his arms around her, his fingers gripping her shoulder, his other arm low at her back.

“That’s hot,” she admitted. “I think anyway.”

He chuckled and nuzzled his nose against her ear. “You’re sexy as hell, Kate.”

“And feeling kinda crazy,” she sighed. “Too tired. A walk will help.”

“Pants might help. You can go topless if you like, but I can’t guarantee-”

She shoved on him, a helpless noise dug out of her throat. Almost a giggle. She hated how it just swung up and down like that, her entire sensibility. Her reactions were off. Her personality-

Reverting? Back to her old self? She had no idea anymore. She was just going to have to let it go, giggles and all.

Kate ducked under his arm and darted towards the closet, stood with a hand raked through her hair as she searched for what to do next. What was she doing?

Clothes. Yes. Shorts were... Kate sighed and grabbed her leggings instead, yanked them on despite the grey, baggy knees. She cupped her breasts to relieve the ache of their weight, realized she could probably pump again if-

No. Not... no. Just. 

Castle liked the taste of her.

She felt that thought go through her like flames, licking her insides and making her squirm as she pulled on a bra. (New bra, the sheer with the underwire and triangle lace that peeled down and exposed her nipples. Oh, God, what was she doing? Fuck it. She liked doing it. She wanted to wear this bra and know she was wearing it while they walked the castle grounds.)

“Beckett. Hurry your ass up.”

She huffed and wriggled into that blue t-shirt she’d worn last night, and then she jammed her feet into the shoes she’d bought herself. She felt ridiculously proud when she exited the closet, but Castle’s face fell.

She froze.

“Those leggings,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Her heart sank-

And then she glared at him. “Shut the fuck up, Rick Castle. I can wear whatever I want. These are comfortable, asshole.”

His face cleared so fast it was almost laughable, and then he actually did laugh. “Alright. Point taken, Beckett. You can wear those saggy-ass leggings as much as you like. But all it’s gonna do is make me try to get you outta them.”

He reached out and snagged the waistband, tugging hard. She came, she stumbled right up against him, but she shoved herself off and went for the door, tossing him a glare over her shoulder.

“Come on, you big bully. You’re taking me on a walk. I want to see the wolves.”

\-----

The night air was warm with a faint stirring of cooler breezes as they walked. When he got up enough courage, he took her hand, feigning a nonchalance he didn’t feel. She didn’t comment, but she didn’t shake him off either.

He was considering it a win.

They headed unconsciously for the wall, though they took a mild turn in the garden, under the weeping willow and down through the vines and flowers. At the wall, he watched Kate move through the open gate and into the broad swath of grass under the moonlight. Powder blue t-shirt, and her hair in waves down to her shoulders, her face a pale star.

She squeezed his hand as they stepped through the wildflowers. Maybe it startled him just enough to shorten his stride, maybe he just liked watching her walk. But she turned her head back to look at him, checking that he followed, and her lips gave a crooked smile before turning away again.

Her legs were amazing. Even in those limp leggings, he could see the stretch of her thighs, the work of her muscles as she walked. Effortless, it seemed, but he also knew how she struggled to appear that way.

Not struggled. Fought. She was a fucking fighter. She didn’t struggle, she flat-out fought.

Their palms were pressed together, and it was warm enough that faint sweat made their skin damp. She was leading the way through the grass, rather purposeful, and he saw they were heading down towards the creek.

He hadn’t even shown her the bridge, the miniature falls. Just hadn’t gotten to it yet. There were lots of things to discover, but he’d rather do it in the light, when she could see everything, when the specter of dreams didn’t still linger.

Kate tugged him a little and then she slowed, glanced back at him again. “I don’t actually know where we’re going.”

He chuckled, shrugged at her. “Going nowhere, love. Just walking the perimeter.”

She darted her eyes back to the wall, and then her head tilted as she tried to peer past the trees and beyond. “All along the wall?”

“Usually my route,” he told her.

Her eyes darted back to him. “You walk a lot at night?”

“Don’t sleep much.”

She nodded, as if that made perfect sense, and he took point again, still holding her hand. They walked in silence for a long time, skirting the outside wall of the cabin, their feet in the brush making the only sounds. 

When Castle got to the far corner where it met the broad trunk of a tree (he and Colin hadn’t been able to even begin to cut it down), Castle stopped and leaned against the broad, old trunk. 

“I like to climb this one,” he admitted, nodding his chin up to the branches overhead. “You can see for miles. The whole side of the hill. Everything that moves.”

Kate stood indecisively for a second, and then she too leaned against the trunk. As if giving in to his ploy to get her to talk. And it was a ploy, and he knew she knew it. He just thought any conversation would be better than the dark night and the moon that barely filtered through the trees, and whatever dream she’d had.

It was all too easy for her to fall right back into those dreams, he’d noticed.

“I saw wolves out here,” she said finally.

Castle straightened up sharply. “When?”

“Earlier. Before we went to town.”

He darted a fast glance through the trees, his eyes roving for other eyes in the darkness. They hunted in packs. They were smart, and they weren’t afraid of humans. “They’re not exactly wolves.”

“What are they?”

“Some kind of interspecies - coyote-wolf mix,” he muttered, pacing away from the tree to take a clearer look. “They’ve started encroaching from Canada. They’re big as wolves but they hunt at night. And they’re fucking smart.”

“I was on the bank,” she said. “And a wolf and her two babies came to the stream to drink.”

Castle turned back to her, frowning. “With you right there?”

She nodded, but she hadn’t stepped away from three. She seemed content. 

“Never seen them do that,” he admitted. “They don’t like people.”

“She didn’t much like me, I’m sure,” Kate answered. “But I didn’t do anything to her. I just sat there.”

Castle scanned the trees. “Huh.”

“I’m not lying.”

Castle whirled back to her. “I didn’t say you were.” 

She turned her head away from him. “Seemed to be questioning me awfully close-”

“It’s not that.” She shrugged at him, like it meant nothing at all, and he huffed and strode to the tree. “I wasn’t saying anything like that. I only wanted you to be careful of them. They’re wild.”

Her chin jerked around, eyes glittering. Wolf herself. “I’m not stupid, Rick. I know they’re wild animals. It’s not like I tried to pet it.”

“I didn’t say that either,” he growled. And then he kissed her, hungrily, because she was furiously arousing, because she was frustrating as hell, and the press of her body was so damn hard and perfect and ripe that he could weep.

She moaned into his mouth and clutched his shirt in her fists, grinding her hips into his. He could feel the resistance of the tree at her back, and her own sharp urge into him, and he gripped her neck to keep her there.

Kate hissed and nipped his bottom lip, her teeth clashing with his, taking skin with her attack. He ripped from her mouth and laved his tongue down her jaw, suckled on her neck to leave a brilliant red mark.

“Next time, I’m petting the damn wolf,” she growled at him. Her hips rocked incessantly against his thigh. 

Bitch, he thought, wild and in heat for her. “Suit yourself, Beckett. Don’t come to me when it takes your damn hand off.”

“Wouldn’t for a fucking million dollars.”

“You fucking better.”

“You just said I was on my own-”

He growled and sealed his mouth over hers, taking her words, her gall, her anger and devouring them. Her hips found a rhythm and he cupped her breasts, drew groans from her aggressive mouth. She clawed at his back and tried to hook her leg around his hip; he widened her thighs but kept her center at abs, her sex grinding at the air.

When they had both worked off their frustration with teeth and tongues and hard bodies, Castle began kneading her breasts, the full mounds of their perfect ripeness in his hands. She slumped slowly back to the tree and offered herself up, wanton, undeniable, her fingers scratching lightly at his ribs under the shirt.

He released her breasts and massaged the points of her ribs and sternum just below those mounds. The movement of her hips began to slow, her rocking had grown lazy again. Castle palmed her flanks and kneaded her ass, scraping his teeth down her neck again and licking lightly at the places he’d already claimed.

Her hands gripped him, began groping inwards toward his groin. She sucked in a breath and tensed in his arms, growing suddenly watchful and rigid, and Castle stopped.

Everything. Stopped dead. Withheld himself from her, the subtle curves and ruthless strength of her. 

Couldn’t.

Kate mewled, her head dropping, eyes sliding open. “You need to come,” she rasped. 

He leaned in against her, holding her up. “I’m fine-”

“You need to come for me,” she said, voice rich and throaty. “For me. Because I need to. Come in my place.”

Castle groaned and pressed his body to hers, pinning her to the tree. His pulse was thumping erratically, desperately.

Wolves, he tried to remind himself.

Her fingers stroked along his crotch, fumbled back until she caressed his balls. 

Castle groaned, forehead crashing into hers. “How - how do you want me?”

\-----

“Turn around,” she said. Her face was burning, the blood rushing under her skin.

Castle cupped her jaw and kissed her, as if ignoring her answer, but when he had sipped lightly, softly from her lips, he released her and turned his back.

She ran her fingers under his shirt, hot skin to skin. He was breathing deeply, trying to catch his breath or maybe just still his heart rate. She spread her hands across his ribs and slowly encircled him, threading her arms through his.

Castle groaned when she stepped up against his back, her hips cradling his ass, her breasts against his scapulae. She laid her cheek to the top of his shoulder, inhaled softly, pleased by the scent of male sweat and, faintly, soap.

“From behind,” she murmured, dragging her nose along the line of his shoulder and into his neck. His skin rippled under her hands, the muscles in his back tensed so that she felt him strong against her belly. 

“From behind,” he echoed in question.

She hummed and flatted her palms to the front of his shorts, listening to his breath in his lungs and feeling the heave of his blood through his body. His heart was pounding, but hers was even. Finally.

Kate curled her fingers and began unbuttoning his shorts, peeling down the zipper, pushing aside the flaps. His arms shifted, drew up to touch her elbows, her forearms, like he wanted to push his consciousness out through his hands and into hers.

She teased at the waistband of his boxers and scratched lightly at the trail of hair, surprised again by how soft it was, how she could pet him forever and not get tired of all the differences between her body and his. Strong and male and hard, and yet the hair at his groin was soft and curly, and the stretch of taut skin over his hip bones was smooth and silky.

And his cock.

Castle growled and bowed his head forward when she touched him. His body was shaking as if trying to hold himself upright was almost too great a task. She handled his cock gently, letting her lips press to the nape of his neck, feeling him by touch alone.

His hands skimmed down her arms and circled her wrists. His chest widened like a bellows in her arms.

Kate smoothed her thumb along the top of his shaft, down to the head where he was already leaking. She circled that fluid over his cock and she could feel the answering tremble in his thighs, as if his legs might give way.

Castle was breathing hard and she’d barely done anything.

She shifted his cock from one hand to the other, pressing in closer to his back to reach him, all of him, and she found the heft of his balls. Castle groaned, squeezing her wrists before letting go, giving her the room to work.

“Kate,” he husked. “Kate, please, sweetheart. Please.”

She circled his base and stroked down - or up, now, oh, he was up - to the head of his cock, squeezing at the tip before fisting him back to the base again. He moaned and rocked his hips into her clutch, and she opened her mouth over the warm skin at his nape, licked him.

Castle cursed. His hands reached back for her, one great palm managed to grab her thigh, gripping her with strong, tense fingers. She suckled lightly at his neck, his body pressed against her hips, her thighs, her breasts, and she stroked his cock again.

It was like having one of her own. Thick in her hands, growing, and she was working him up and down now, enjoying the friction of her dry fingers over his throbbing cock. Her cock. All hers, and his balls were drawing up closer to his body, so that her knuckles bumped them each time.

She cupped them again, rolled them in her palm, and Castle cried out. Before she knew it, she was hurtled back against the tree trunk with his body pinning hers, even while his hips thrust madly into her hand, his come jettisoned from his cock in great, growling leaps that she could only feel and not see.

She could feel him. His whole body as if it were her own, the amazing release that had surprised them both, the tension bleeding out muscles and tendons and bones, the euphoria of orgasm.

Kate breathed shallowly, her heart thumping loud - or maybe it was his - rocking them both. Her hands cradled his softening cock, his balls, as if in protection, as if to hold on.

To keep that connection. His big body against her, in her hold, his vulnerable steel in her hands. She brushed her opened lips along his neck, tongue touching his skin where the sweat had sprung up, the taste of salt and musk, the taste of him.

She let go - just one hand, just this one, creamed by his come - and she drew it slowly towards her, unthreading from his arm, until she held her palm before her. In the bare light of the far away moon, the silvered shadows of leaves, she could see his seed in drops against her knuckles. 

She dipped her head, forehead to his shoulder, and licked the taste of him into her.

Castle groaned and lifted away from her, but only far enough to snag her wrist and draw her body up against his chest. She looked up and saw his eyes, intent on her, before his tongue circled her knuckles and the webbing of her thumb.

And then he kissed her, and his taste filled her senses.

\-----


	27. Chapter 27

He wanted to devour her whole, wanted to drag his mouth down her body and bury his face between her legs and eat her until she screamed-

But he couldn’t do that.

Castle yanked away roughly, hands cupping her face - how alive and electric this thing between them. “Didn’t expect to come so fast,” he husked. His eyes roved hers. “Or so hard. Didn’t crush you, did I?”

“No, baby, not so that it matters.” Her hands were hot under his shirt, pulling him into her hips. He rocked gently and she sighed in pleasure, her head tilting back to the tree, her eyes sliding shut. “Tired now. Feels good.”

“I wish I could pick you up, have you wrap your legs around my waist, and make out with you the whole walk back.”

She laughed and her eyes flew open. “While you walk us back?”

“Yeah. Don’t wanna stop touching you like this. Your arms and legs wrapped around me.”

She tilted her head and her arm snaked up around his neck. “Well. There is a way. But I’m the only one who can do any kissing.”

He narrowed his eyes.

She grinned and slid around his body, her fingers trailing at his waist, a little pat on his cock. He was still free - he’d forgotten that. She put her hands on his shoulders and pressed down; he could feel her little hop.

“What’re you doing?” he said, reaching in to tuck himself into his boxers. Zip up his pants again.

“Button up, kitten, and then let me climb your back.”

“What?” he laughed, turning his head to look at her. But he did as she said, buttoning his pants, watching her smirk at him. “Kitten?”

“It’s just a saying,” she muttered. “Piggy-back ride. Come on. Turn around and let’s go.”

He was still stuck on kitten but he turned back around and widened his arms, squatted a little for her to reach. She jumped, hands on his shoulders taking some of her weight, and then her legs clung to him, wrapped around his torso like a monkey. Her arm snaked around his neck while the other came up under his armpit, her fingers lacing together.

With her chin dug into his shoulder, her legs like a vise around him, it wasn’t quite what he’d been hoping for when he’d admitted he wanted her wrapped around him.

She was warm though, and her weight at his back - her breasts crushed against him - felt pretty damn good. 

And then her lips caressed his ear and he twitched, making her laugh. Her tongue touched his earlobe and then her teeth nipped.

“Fuck,” he croaked.

“See, baby? You can’t make out with me, but I can neck you.”

He grunted, twisting his head around to catch a glimpse of her. She ducked and buried her face at his nape, her teeth scraping his skin.

“Neck me,” he muttered. “You think you’re so clever.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I am. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

He gripped her thighs and squeezed, started off under the trees, keeping the wall on his other side as they headed back for their garden. “You’re something, alright.”

“Only something?” she hummed. Her mouth was cruel against his neck, her arms tightening, thighs clenching around him. 

“Something special,” he admitted, feeling stupid. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so interesting.”

She chuckled in his ear. “Aw, listen to you, trying to sweet talk me. Think you can win me over with that?”

He huffed. “You called me kitten.”

“Did not.”

“Did too,” he protested, indignation rising up. “I heard it. You-”

She was laughing now, rich and low, right in his ear, that hum in her voice.

“Yeah, I’m not the kitten here,” he muttered, squeezing her thighs sharply. She squeezed back, tightening her legs around him. “If you call me kitten, I’m calling you-”

“Not if you know what’s good for you,” she murmured. Her teeth scraped along his jaw, her whole body draped over his back to reach him. “I’m already letting you get away with murder, Rick Castle.”

“Murder? How?”

“Sweetheart, baby, honey. Do I look like a girl who wants to be lumped in with all the rest of them?”

“All the rest of who?” he said, bewildered.

She nipped his ear again, tugging. “Those stupid bimbos who fall for your lines. Your covert affairs.”

He stiffened, gripping her tighter, feeling like that vise was around his lungs. “No. I - that’s not the same.”

She squeezed his neck in the crook of her arm, as if a warning.

But he went on, heedless. She had brought it up; she had somehow gotten the idea this was something he did. “Whoever I’ve - snared - in a mission, Kate, that’s not this. That’s only ever a - a fucking transaction. Business. Getting the job done. You think I’d hold myself back from you if you didn’t matter?”

Her face was pressed against his shoulder; she said nothing.

“I don’t call anyone else - I’ve never been a man that went with terms of endearment for a fucking transaction. Don’t even begin to do me the dishonor of-”

“Shut up, Castle.” She tightened her arm around his neck, choking off his words. “Just - stop talking.”

“No. This matters. You’re more. Don’t pretend you don’t know, you don’t feel it. It’s not pretty.”

“Shut up,” she growled, sinking her teeth into his shoulder.

It didn’t hurt, but he figured he ought to finally listen to her. And maybe the bite was her response to overwhelming information, to an uncomfortable confrontation. 

Didn’t matter. He wasn’t dropping this. Let her call him kitten and mess around, fine. He’d tease her right back.

But she couldn’t tell herself lies about him, about his staying. He wouldn’t let her even begin to think he was going anywhere.

\-----

Kate’s foot kept dropping and she’d jerk awake, and then try to hold on to him, even though he had a good grip on her.

He wouldn’t drop her. She knew that.

At the back garden, she moved to get down, but he squeezed her legs and kept going, pushing through the gate and inside. Tall orange flowers brushed her leg, tiger lilies that bobbed in the moonlight. Kate tightened her arm around his neck and touched a kiss to his spine.

“What’s that for?” he said softly. Like she hadn’t been kissing him before. Like this was different.

Maybe it was. “Nothing. Thank you. I like kissing you.”

He chuckled, but his voice was low. It ran through her like tickling fingers and she sighed. 

Castle tucked his forearm behind her knee and reached for the French doors, twisting the knob and opening one side. Still not letting her down. She buried a smile into his nape and enjoyed the ride all the way through the living room and down the hall to their bedroom.

His bedroom.

Their bedroom. She liked that. Liked sharing things with him. She didn’t mind saying it; she didn’t even mind telling him.

“I like sleeping with you,” she blurted out.

Castle’s stride hitched, his head jerking around as if he could see her. When he couldn’t, he turned and sat down on the bed, letting her go to twist in her arms. She didn’t avoid his gaze, merely twined her arms around his neck and tugged.

He came crawling into bed with her, one fist planted in the mattress to scoot them up to the headboard. She laid back and he laid over her, and his mouth came down to kiss her. 

Touches of lips, the wet slide of tongue. The heat of him, the weight of him bearing her down. 

Kate opened her mouth and pushed forward into his kiss, stroking, soothing, humming with an almost lazy appreciation of this thing sparking between them. Connection. It was electric, vital; it was crackling through her body and yet she could do this forever, kissing him, touching his skin, his neck, his ears.

He grunted and then laughed into her cheek, pulling away to look at her. His fingers stroked along her jaw and cheeks, back to her ears, and then he rubbed her earlobes, the shell of her ears, his eyes teasing.

“Don’t quite get it,” he murmured. “But yours are soft.”

She flushed, slapping his shoulder and trying to tug him back down to her. Castle resisted only long enough for her to grip his ear and twist it, and he laughed harder and dropped his hips down on hers.

She hummed and raised her knee, dragging her inside thigh along his hip. “Ears are handy,” she murmured. “And there’s something about gripping your head and putting you right where I want you.”

He grinned and stole a kiss, came back for another with his tongue lightly meeting hers. She inhaled through her mouth, breathing his exhale, the taste of his kiss in the air that filtered to her lungs. She felt drugged by it, her exhaustion melding with this electric sexual tension. 

His fingers caressed her jaw, her throat. He touched her breast above the shirt, a brush of her nipple, down her ribs to cradle her hip. She found herself copying his movements on his body, pressing her hands to learn the shape of him, remind herself of his width and power and taut strength.

Castle shifted them to lie face to face, his fingers stroking under her shirt and to her back. He pulled her in close and she accepted the slide of his knee between her thighs, drawing her arm around his waist.

He was watching her, studying her, and she did the same back. His eyes were liquid blue, like still water, and she somehow felt the relief of knowing exactly what he wanted from her, knowing precisely where she stood.

Even if she didn’t know if she could stand it, keeping standing, be able to withstand it. All of those. It still felt so right to know. Without a doubt.

His lips brushed hers, his sigh soft between them. “Sleep, Kate,” he murmured. “I’m here.”

Was that really all it took?

Maybe so. She was drifting down to sleep.

\-----

Castle was awake when the boys began to stir, small noises from overhead, nothing urgent. He shifted slowly out of bed, but Kate was deeply asleep, one hand curled under her cheek. When he stood and headed for the stone stairs, he could hear one of the boys babbling to himself.

Wyatt? He was the one who kept trying new sounds, picking up words. The boys were adjusting quickly to their new home, and their new freedom, in ways he hadn’t realized they were lacking. The words, the babytalk, the interactions between them had become more normalized.

Castle peered into the room, stepping through the gate, and one of the boys’ heads popped up.

“Daddy!”

“Hey, buddy,” he said softly, grinning at Wyatt. “James is still asleep, so let’s be quiet.” 

He crept towards the bed and reached in over the railings to lift him over. Wyatt cuddled up to him, awake and sweet, and Castle cradled the back of his head, turned away from the still-sleeping James.

“Hey, are you awake for good?” he murmured into Wyatt’s ear. 

“Daddy,” he said, sounding so proud of himself.

“Yeah, that’s me. You got it.” He combed down Wyatt’s fly-away hair and kissed his cheek, already descending the steps. “Now you gotta be quiet. Mommy’s still sleeping.”

“Mommy?”

“She’s asleep,” he warned the boy again. He kept his hand against the back of Wyatt’s head and by-passed the bed entirely, blocking his son’s view of Kate. Just in case. “Let’s get some breakfast, just you and me.”

“Me-me-me,” Wyatt babbled, his fingers brushing over his lips, fumbling with them. Like he was trying to feel the sounds as they came out.

“Shhh,” Castle warned softly, carrying the boy farther away. “Breakfast in the kitchen. We’ll make pancakes. Mommy really loved those. And they’re good for her stomach.”

“Mama. Muh-muh-”

“Okay, yes, I know. Mommy’s the best. Let’s make pancakes quietly.” Castle settled Wyatt on the broad granite countertop, giving him enough room to crawl if he wanted to explore, but hopefully without crawling right off. “Be good, Wy. Hang out here with me, okay?”

Wyatt beamed back at him, cherubic and innocent, and Castle chuckled and ducked the boy’s head, ruffling his hair. He set about mixing the batter in the bowl Kate had washed yesterday, glancing over at Wyatt from time to time to be sure the boy hadn’t found the knives or something.

Castle opened the fridge and pulled out the fresh blueberries, added the whole container to the mix as well. They’d have to buy more soon, maybe after the strawberries had been eaten. 

“What’s going on, big brother?”

Castle turned and saw Colin straggling in, hair spiked where he’d fallen asleep on it, a ratty t-shirt and boxers on. He snorted and nodded to a chair at the bar. “Sit and keep an eye on my kid.”

“You have a kid. Do you know how fucking weird that is?” But Colin obediently shuffled to the bar stool, sank down before Wyatt, making faces at the boy. “You’re cool, I guess, kid. Wyatt, right?”

“Yeah.” Castle shot his brother a look, but he saw the smirk on Colin’s face. He was fucking with him. “Hey, grocery run tomorrow, I think. Need fresh fruit.”

“Sure.” Colin flicked Wyatt’s ear when the boy tried to head for the side. Wyatt sat back with a tilt of his head, as if not sure what to do with that. “Hey, have you talked to Kate about the ones who got away?”

Castle swallowed. “Not any more than we did.”

“We need to get her to a sketch artist. I should have photos in another few days - still pulling some strings.”

Castle nodded, pouring batter into the skillet. “Right. Sketch artist. Shit.”

“I found someone local. But we’d have to drive in.”

“What’s the story supposed to be?”

“A mugger,” Colin said easily. “Police uninterested or unmotivated, so - as her husband - you’re setting this up. I already called the guy. He’s on retainer at the station, but you’ll jus say you guys are from Windyke. It’s small enough that it could be true, but he’d have no buddies there or anything.”

“Good.” Castle watched the pancakes begin to brown and turned to look at his brother. “We need a photo array as soon as you can. It’s been too long - if people got out, if someone is looking for her...”

Colin frowned. “I think we’d have heard from our contacts before now if they were looking for her. But I know you’re worried. I’ll do what I can.”

Castle flipped the pancakes one at a time, worrying over it, that was for sure. But more than just the ones who might have gotten away. The last of their father’s terrible network. He worried about his family - new and old. His brothers.

“Colin?”

“Yeah.”

“We... need to talk to Alex. Not just about how much he knew, where he is in all of this, but Ben, and the elixir, and the - the pregnancies.”

Colin scraped a hand down his face and knocked the napkins away from Wyatt’s outstretched hand. “No, kid. You’ll make a mess.”

“Colin.”

“Fuck them both.” Colin growled. “That’s what I say.”

“I know,” he said hollowly. “They... I told Kate that it would remain between us - her and me.”

“I don’t fucking care about whatever - let it remain between you. But the fact of the matter is that Black impregnated her - more than once, Castle - and Alex fucking knew about it. Strangers’ DNA inside her. And Alex just fucking whistling while he worked.”

“I just don’t know that he-”

“Don’t be so damn naive.”

Castle’s face burned. His whole body burned. He wanted to slam his fist into the granite counter, he wanted to lose it. It’d feel so damn good to just absolutely lose it.

But Colin. And then James, upstairs, who had finally gotten some sleep and might need the rest from all of their fucking emotions. 

“Chop wood, Castle,” Colin interrupted. “Fuck. You need like five hours of splitting logs.”

Castle grunted, clearing his throat. “Yeah. I do. You’re right.”

“And then after that, we talk about what we do with our sniveling, weak-willed brother.”

“And Ben?”

“I’m telling you, the computer code looks like his, the algorithms. The security.”

“I don’t want to split us up,” Castle croaked. “We barely had - they’re all we have.” He felt sick just thinking about how guilelessly his brothers had gone along. If they had. Maybe they hadn’t known the extent to which John Black was-

“Richard,” Colin snapped, using his first name to jerk the string of Castle’s attention. “Brace yourself for the worst. You love this girl, she’s the mother of your sons. They are what you have. For her sake, man, fuck. For her sake alone. Be ready to hold them responsible.”

Kate.

Oh, God. If they’d done this to Kate.

\-----

Kate yawned as she shuffled into breakfast, squinting her eyes against the light spilling into the kitchen. Castle and Colin both were out here, talking - though it seemed tense, and Wyatt was on the counter eating strawberries that someone had cut up for him.

“Hey, babe,” Castle called to her. He had relaxed when he caught sight of her, held up a spatula. “Sit. I made pancakes.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but she sat down before Wyatt, leaning in to kiss his cheek in good morning. 

“Mama!” he said, holding up a strawberry. 

Kate grinned and snatched the fruit right out of his fingers, licking so that he giggled rather helplessly. He splayed his hand out and caught her her hair, hanging onto her.

“Hey, buddy, let’s ease up on Mommy,” Castle said, reaching in to untangle Wyatt’s fingers. “Did you happen to see James?”

“Oh.” Kate blinked, pulling back from Wyatt. “No. I - didn’t think to check.”

“You can’t pick him up anyway,” Colin interrupted. “I’ll go get him. Kid should be up anyway. Join in on the fun.”

Colin left them at the counter and Kate sighed, rubbing her forehead as she watched him disappear into Castle’s room. She was still tired, though that could be regular morning sleepiness rather than real exhaustion.

“Hey, Kate?”

She turned away from the hall and faced Castle, lifting a brow.

“Couple things on the schedule, if you’re up for it?” Castle gave her a tight smile, but he handed her a plate of pancakes with blueberries.

Kate leaned in a little and sniffed the stack, smiling up at him. “My dad used to make me blueberry pancakes.”

“Uh-oh. I’m doomed. No way I can live up to that.”

She laughed and picked up her fork. He didn’t have syrup, but she didn’t need it. Whatever he did to his mix - or maybe she just hadn’t eaten pancakes in so long. “So what’s on the schedule?”

Castle leaned against his hands braced on the counter. Wyatt crawled to him and used his shoulders to stand, tried to climb his torso like a tree. Castle straightened up, holding Wyatt in his arms. Seemed to be exactly what Wyatt had wanted, because he settled in against Castle and laid his head on Castle’s shoulder.

“I want to take you to a sketch artist in town,” Castle said.

Kate dropped her fork.

“It’ll be fine,” Castle said quickly. “You’ll be with me the whole time. I won’t let you out of my sight.”

She flushed and folded her hands in her lap, realized that looked like she was trying to compose herself. She was, but she didn’t want to look like she was. Kate picked up her fork again and stabbed at a pancake, but she didn’t eat it.

“A sketch artist for what? I thought you said there was a program on the computer?”

Castle was leaning in close; he laid his hand over hers on the counter, still cradling Wyatt. “Yeah, there’s a program but it’s not as distinct as a sketch artist. We need the details.”

“For - all of them?” she said. They’d come up with about nine people who’d come through the facility in the last three years she’d been caged. 

“No, just the trainers. They seem to have been the only ones coming and going, so it’s important we find them. Only three of them left so-”

“Because I killed one of them,” she said grimly.

Castle’s head tilted as he studied her; he looked so much like Wyatt in that moment that it sent shivers down her spine.

“I wanted to-”

Castle squeezed her hand. “Kate.”

She stopped talking, took a breath. She lifted her head to him. 

Castle was so focused on her. The intensity of his feelings was there behind his eyes, in the firm set of his jaw, the furrow of his brow. “Kate. You did exactly what you had to do to survive. You can’t doubt that.”

She withdrew her hand from under his, went ahead and folded them in her lap, sitting stiffly on the bar stool. “That might be true, Castle,” she said calmly. “But I still killed a man.”

His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He shook his head. “I don’t know what that means,” he said. “I don’t know why it has you looking like that.”

“I took someone’s life,” she insisted, leaning forward. She pressed the heels of her hands into her knees to keep her balance, turning her head away from him. “Maybe you don’t know what that means. But I do.”

Castle was silent.

She couldn’t explain it to him. If he didn’t have it, he didn’t have it, but she couldn’t quite believe that he didn’t know somehow. She’d seen her mother dying in front of her; there was no way she wouldn’t think about who had been left behind when she’d killed that trainer.

The two guards. Black.

That was her list. She knew their faces by heart. She would never forget them.

“Okay,” Castle said softly. “If the moment’s over, can we talk about this?”

Kate swiveled her head to look at him, but he wasn’t being snarky. She saw he was trying to be respectful; he just didn’t know how. 

He didn’t know how.

She put her elbows on the counter, determined to keep going. “So talk.”

“We’ve told the sketch artist that you were mugged by three men, and the Windyke PD aren’t investigating to my liking. Just the usual overbearing husband routine. You’ll give your descriptions of the trainers, and we’ll start there. You said one of them had an Army tattoo, so that should help us narrow him down.”

Kate reached out and snagged her fork once more, certain she could do it now. “I liked him. He was the nice one. The one Black yanked outta there the moment he started asking me questions. He might - not be alive, Castle.”

“Well, doesn’t matter. One less to worry about.”

She swallowed through the dryness in her throat, found herself wishing he was... out there somewhere. Untouched by all of this. Going about his life.

“Kate?”

She nodded. “Yeah, one less. When are we going to the sketch artist?”

“Later this morning. After breakfast, we’ll shower, get the kids ready-”

“No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “No, I don’t want them - there for it.”

Castle looked stunned. She knew she sounded crazy. But she had good reasons.

“They’re smart boys,” she said. “They know things. James feels things about me, about what I’m feeling. I don’t want them there for it, Castle.”

His hand came up and cupped the back of Wyatt’s head, cradling him. Like he was protecting the boy. “I understand, Kate. We’ll leave them here with Colin.”

She nodded, determined to do this. Sketch artist. Thinking about that time, nearly two years ago, when she’d been stupid enough to believe Black was going to let her out when she’d proven herself.

Stupid.

So damn stupid.

\-----

Kate submitted to both the protein shake and the blood test that morning without any protest, though Castle told himself not to trust it. 

She didn’t submit; it wasn’t in her nature. So something else was coming.

He checked her hemoglobin carefully, using the stats the machine displayed to compare against his father’s records and Alex’s own medical history. As he pored over the elements, one by one, honing in on the blood-gas percentages, he realized she was still standing in the kitchen, studying him in the living room.

Castle lifted his head, pulled from the computer by the lifelessness in her eyes. “Kate?”

She roused and her gaze sharpened, and he realized she hadn’t actually been here at all.

“Kate,” he said firmly. “Shower, get dressed. I want to leave by ten.”

She nodded, a swift look to the oven clock before her feet unstuck from the floor. He watched her walk towards the hall, and then he glanced down at his notes, debating with himself.

He snapped the laptop shut and pushed it off onto the couch, jumping up now to follow her.

He could hear the boys upstairs playing when he got to the bedroom, and Kate had already disappeared into the bathroom. He came after her quickly, noticed the Walgreens bag on the counter. All the stuff she’d bought to round out her toiletries.

“Castle?” she murmured.

“You need any help?” he asked, entirely too softly, entirely too gently. He knew it. So he wriggled his eyebrows and caught her hips, stepped up behind her back at the mirror. “I’m very helpful in the shower. As you well know.”

She stirred again, as if from a drugging sleep, and her eyes dropped to stare at his hands in the reflection. He responded immediately to her unspoken request, dragging his palms up her ribs and cupping her breasts, weighing the heavy flesh in his grip.

“You’re - helpful, all right,” she rasped. Her eyes were struggling to stay open; he could see the flush already climbing her cheeks. She shifted in his arms, shook herself. “I have to shower. Shave. I have to... do things.”

“I can do things.”

“You distract me,” she murmured.

“You like my distractions.”

“I really do,” she said helplessly, turning her head to press her nose to his jaw before kissing him. “I really do.” Another kiss that he let her linger over, light touches of his tongue against her own, teasing. “No, no, I need to shave, Castle. No more of this until I at least get it under control. I can’t believe you even want to touch me.”

“Shave what?” he rumbled. “Your legs? I like the way it feels. Soft.” He dipped his fingers down into the boxer shorts she was wearing like pajamas, caressed the top of her thigh. Soft hair on her legs.

“Soft,” she muttered. “Three years is a fucking long time. Who knew it’d give up and grow back soft?”

“It’s usually prickly, right?” He dug his chin into the top of her shoulder and kissed the exposed skin of her throat. “But this is all soft.”

“Not - all of it. And-” She growled and shrugged her shoulder, trying to dislodge him but he wouldn’t go. She lifted her hand and gripped his hair, tugging. He kinda liked that, actually.

“And what?” he said, grinning against her neck. Another kiss where he could reach and now he dipped his other hand into her boxers and caressed the top of her other thigh, both thighs, long circles and sweeps down her skin.

“And... and my - you know. My sex. It’s completely wild.”

His heart skipped, started to race. “Do you know how fucking sexy you sound? Completely wild. Fuck. Take these off. I want to see it.”

“You’ve already seen it,” she growled, squirming under his hands.

But he already had her boxers pushed to her thighs and her squirming only dropped them faster. The panties were in the way, but he hooked his fingers in the waistband and went to his knees behind her, dragging them down with a kiss on each cheek of her ass.

Her beautiful, round, firm ass. 

Which he couldn’t help nipping with his teeth as he lifted her leg and made her step out of the panties.

She reached back and clutched his hair, as if to yank him away, but it wound up being more as if to hold on.

Yeah, he really liked that. Highly erotic, her grip on his hair.

Castle put softer kisses at the backs of her knees and skimmed his fingers along her calves. “It’s not as long as I would have expected. And it’s soft, Kate, here and here.” The backs of her knees were practically bare, one lone curled wisp, while her calves were almost prickly.

“I need to shave,” she reiterated, as if it were the only thing she could say.

Castle palmed the back of her thigh and slowly turned her around, dusting up the tail of her shirt - his shirt that she’d taken to wearing - and revealing all of it to his hungry gaze.

It really was completely wild. Her sex was a growth of kinky hair, a carpet on her inside thighs up to the crown of her labia. Her hands drifted inward and he caught her by the wrists, spread her arms apart so he could dip his head forward and put his lips to her groin.

“Castle,” she grunted, fingers curling up hard to his. Her hips bumped against his face.

“You smell good,” he murmured. “I love the way you smell - musk and arousal and last night’s want.”

“Castle...” A breathiness in her voice that he was learning to heed.

He lifted his head and his eyes as well, gazing up at her from his spot kneeling on the floor. “You’re right. Completely wild.” He had a sudden urge to bite her there, bite her clit until she screamed.

He couldn’t do that. Absolutely couldn’t do that. But in six weeks.

“I need to shave,” she protested again, her wrists twisting in his grip. 

“But not too much,” he told her, not letting go.

“Castle.”

“But not too much, Kate,” he insisted. “I got plans for completely wild.”

She squirmed against the edge of the trough sink, her wrists twisting again, trying to break his hold. Trying rather poorly, for a woman trained as she had been. For a woman who had flipped him last night.

“I need to shave.” It had become something of a free pass, he thought. An easy way out.

“You want to shave, fine. I’ll even help.” He leaned in and kissed her navel, eliciting a soft gasp even as he rose quickly to his feet.

Castle released her wrists and grabbed the hem of his shirt, ripped it off over his head. He got at the button to his pants and started in, and she backed up.

“What are you doing?”

“Showering with you. I want to watch.”

Her eyebrow lifted. “Watch... me shave?”

“Exactly,” he grinned. “And before you get that... high up-” Castle dropped his pants and palmed his erection through his boxer briefs, sighing at the pressure. “I want to come. Right there. Completely wild.”

Kate reached for her shirt and yanked it off over her head.

\-----

She had no idea how she’d gotten here, seduced into a bathtub with him, sitting in the vee of his legs as he perfectly slid a razor across the slope of her shin.

Her leg was propped on top of his to keep it out of the water, and he’d enjoyed so very much lathering her with silky shaving cream. He was low rumbles of satisfaction and heavy breathing in her ear, his lips nipping her neck when he was extra pleased with himself and the job he was doing.

Shaving her legs. In the bathtub. With the window set high in the wall casting white sunlight onto the tile and illuminating the entire room. The water was exceptionally hot, though the level was low, and it tickled between her legs where the foam from the shaving cream had drifted on the current.

Castle hummed and rubbed his thumb across the hard angles of her knee, as if checking to be sure he’d gotten everything, and then he reached out of the tub to dip the razor in the bowl of cool water he’d placed there. Precisely for that reason. Ew, no, we’re not rinsing it off in the bath with us.

That had been the first she’d heard of a bath. 

What a lovely idea, though. His fingers caressing her skin, the blade cutting so cleanly, so close. The swath of smooth leg that she herself couldn’t help luxuriating in. How the water clung to her now, here, this silk of skin that had been her functional leg.

“Lift up for me, love,” he murmured at her ear. 

She squirmed against him, feeling exactly what had lifted all its own - later, Beckett, let me have my foreplay - and she tried to reposition herself so that he could get all the way down to her ankle. 

“Huh, no good. I might have to switch sides of the tub.”

“Just do all of what you can get to like this,” she protested. And even though she heard it, the whine in her voice, the want, she didn’t even care. He was very good at this, the pampering stuff, the whispering in her ear and seducing her part.

“Mm, good idea,” he murmured. “All the way down here then.” His fingers traced a line on her bare thigh down to the crease where her leg met her hip. “I can’t wait. You’ll have to arch for me, so I can get everything.”

“Arch for you?” she smirked, rocking her hips up a little just so she landed back against his erection. “Like that?”

“Very much like that, only put a little more force into it, Beckett. I won’t break.”

She laughed, the sound breaking through the stillness of the bathroom and the taut edge she’d held over herself until now. 

She really loved being seduced.

“Who knew shaving a woman could be so erotic?” he hummed in her ear. His fingers were still playing at her hip. “I think you should relinquish all grooming duties to me.”

“In your dreams.”

“Yes, most definitely, from now on my lurid fantasies will involve your legs.” His fingers circled the skin high at her thigh and then dipped into the water to her inside thigh. Where he cupped her, making the hot water rock against her sex. “And the place between your legs as well.”

“Castle,” she moaned, rocking her hips in earnest now, wanting pressure, friction, the push of his fingers against her. “Water’s not enough. I need-”

“Sorry, sweetheart. Water’s all you can have right now.” His other hand came to her hip and forcibly held her down. “Settle, love. Easy.” His lips against her jaw, his mouth, the hum of his chest at her back and the electric current that buzzed between them, every time he touched her, buzzing and buzzing.

“What could it hurt?” she husked. “Just a little one. To take the edge off. Just touch me, Castle. I really want you.”

He swore softly, the curse buried in her hair where he pressed his face against her. Hard.

She cupped her hand over his at her sex, tried to push on his fingers, tried to force him there where she ached so badly, where the water teased and teased and promised but never followed through. Her hips danced and he clamped his free hand down hard against her.

“No,” he scraped out. “No. Kate.”

“I really want you,” she whispered, her throat arched with her head back, trying to thrust herself into his touch. “Just you. You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted - like this, so badly.”

“Kate,” he moaned. “Baby, please don’t. You’re so beautiful, so sensual against me. I want nothing more than to bury myself inside you, give you everything you want so badly, so damn badly, but we can’t. We can’t. Please, honey.”

She lifted her hand from the water and the fruitless push against his fingers and instead she wound her arm around his neck and clung to him. Pulled his mouth down to hers and clashed against his teeth. Bit his tongue. Punished him for punishing her.

He took it. 

He gave it back.

Her fault after all.

\-----

Castle hauled her out of the bathtub, streaming water from every smooth line of her gorgeous body. He had been allowed to shave her legs, but it had just gotten too dangerous, the line they were walking, the fire they were playing with.

Plus she had firmly said no when he’d asked to leave her sex wild for him. No, Castle. I can’t even wear shorts.

Well, she had been wearing shorts, all through the house and even outside, but he wasn’t going to point that out right now.

He left the water draining in the tub and pulled her towards the glass shower stall, carrying the shaving cream while she took the razor. Once he’d relinquished it, she hadn’t given it up. 

“How’d I do?” he asked, watching her critically as she walked. 

She slapped his shoulder and stepped into the shower, pushing the button to turn on the water without even flinching. And he knew it came out freezing cold - that was how he’d left it after last night.

“You know how you did,” she muttered, dragging him by the arm across the threshold. His skin prickled with the cold but already she had adjusted the temperature. “You like to make me hot for you, don’t you? To tease and tease until you make me beg for it. And then you get to tell me no.”

His mouth dropped open.

She shoved him back against the tile and gripped his cock, twisting hard. He yelped and jerked under her rough embrace, groaned when it seemed to be the exact right fucking thing.

He was so damn hard again.

“You keep telling me no, Castle, and I’m gonna start hating you for it.”

He groaned and clutched her arm, wrapping his fingers around her bicep and squeezing. Same rhythm she had for his cock, gripping and twisting and torturing him.

“Do you want me to hate you?”

“Don’t - don’t care,” he grit out. He slammed his own hips back into the wall in an effort to ease the fast-building threat of his orgasm. Didn’t work. The stutter of pain only heightened his fucking intense need.

“You don’t care if I hate you?”

“No, I - I care, I want - you. Want you to love me back, oh God, Kate, please, please let me come, holy fucking-”

She pressed her body against his and angled his cock between her legs and he croaked a warning, no, she couldn’t do that, he was too far gone to make her stop-

But he orgasmed in a fucking rush, spurting between her legs and bucking hard against her hips. On and on, his climax ripped out of his body and poured down the drain until he was wet and limp and shaking, and he dropped to the floor with a roar in his head like the wings of a beast flying invisible.

He couldn’t move. His chin was against his sternum, his legs splayed before him, Kate still standing.

And then she stepped over him and moved for the can of shaving cream and the razor she’d left on the ledge. She lifted her foot and propped it against the seat, her sex on full display for him at this angle.

He blinked water out of his eyes but he still couldn’t get up off the tile. She sprayed foam into her hand and lathered it quickly, stroking down her thigh to her sex, covering the whole wild bush with shaving cream.

Castle grunted and rolled onto his side, crawled on hands and knees towards her, finally hauled himself onto the bench. Up close and personal.

She arched backward, rinsing her hand off in the water, the shaving cream falling from her fingers, white and sudsy and pretty. And then she straightened up again and reached for him, combed her fingers through his hair and bent down over her knee, angled his chin up, kissed him quietly.

“Sometimes I try to hurt you,” she murmured, her lips barely grazing his. “I don’t know why. But you keep crawling back.”

“Not once have you hurt me,” he husked, fighting the insane lethargy of his post-coital bliss. “Not once, love. Even if you did, I’d still be here.”

“You have no idea,” she sighed, and released her grip on his hair, and straightened up again.

And then she started cutting away whole swaths of all that wildness he loved so fiercely.

\-----

Castle kept growling at her, but she didn’t listen. She wanted it gone. Gone. She needed it bare and clean and-

His hand snapped forward and gripped her wrist, hard and hot. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She twisted her wrist, but the blade skimmed his knuckles and blood burst out over his skin. She dropped the razor and stared, the blood blooming and running down, and she began to shake.

She couldn’t stop shaking.

The water was burning, and she was trembling like she’d been doused in ice.

“Okay, okay,” he said, standing up from the seat and wrapping his arms around her. She shivered in his embrace, but he petted her hair down her back and cupped her flank, tugged her closer. “I get it, honey, I do. But I love the wild in you, baby. You’re fierce that way. Don’t wipe it all out, don’t try to cut it down like a weed. It’s beautiful.”

She pressed her face into the top of his shoulder. “I made you bleed.”

“Already stopped, honey.” He combed his fingers to her neck, his thumb tracing her ear. “Look. It’s just fine. I heal fast.”

She turned her head and glanced at his knuckles, saw the red streaks where the shower had diffused the blood, but the spots where the razor had nicked him were gone. Completely gone. 

Kate caught his hand in both of hers, cradled it close, her eyes roving his knuckles. “It’s - fine. Your hand is...”

“The elixir, love.”

She lifted her head and stared at him, understanding for the first time exactly what John Black had been doing mucking around in her body.

“Oh, my God,” she croaked. And then she shoved away from him and knocked hard into the shower door, forcing it open so she could stumble out. 

She ran.

\-----

Castle dressed in silence, the room empty. He’d followed Kate out of the bathroom, but she’d already snatched up her clothes from the closet, her hair hanging in wet clumps around her pale face. She had mounted the stone steps and he could hear her now upstairs, talking to the boys, low murmurs.

He buttoned up the Oxford shirt and tried not to think about the look on her face in the shower, the horror.

He was having a difficult time not thinking about it.

His guts were churning. She thought him... what? A freak. His father’s son.

Castle took a hard breath and ruthlessly shoved the tails of his shirt into his waistband, tucking it in without much care. He strode swiftly to the closet and found a tie, but he didn’t have the heart. He unbuttoned the top two buttons and tried to ease the constriction around his neck.

But it was his throat closing up, not the thought of the tie.

Castle pressed his hands to the shelf containing his shoes, leaned in hard against it, closing his eyes.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, trying to find a calm center in the maelstrom, when her voice came softly from the doorway.

“The boys will be like you?”

He couldn’t look at her when he answered. “Yes.” His heart was in his throat, that was the problem. “I - I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“It’s the elixir. It changes the way the red blood cells-”

“Why are you sorry?”

He straightened up slowly, curled his hands into fists, and then he faced her. Hair in loose waves around her face, still drying, her eyes guileless. Jeans again, but one of the blouses from the store he’d liked, the pretty one with the deep vee neckline. Beautiful.

“Why are you sorry?” she repeated, crossing her arms over her chest. “There’s nothing wrong with them. You said there was nothing wrong with them. Castle-”

“Just the elixir,” he choked out. “Nothing wrong but the elixir.”

Her lips twisted and so did his heart. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Don’t tell me it’s - it’s - for nothing? No. I can breastfeed them more. They’re only taking it at night, but I can keep pumping and they can nurse-”

“What?” he said, releasing his fingers to catch her elbows. “Kate. No. They don’t need to nurse any more than they are. They need solid foods. It was in his notes.”

She stopped, her mouth open, but then she frowned at him. “You said the elixir was wrong.”

He released her elbows, straightening up. “No, not wrong. The elixir is working. They’re on their way. I need to do a blood test in a week, after nursing them at night, and their diet - all of that - but no, they should be healthy.”

“Why did you say that then?” she hissed. And then she punched his shoulder. Hard. She punched hard. Damn it. “Why the hell would you say that when you know that’s all I care about?”

He rubbed his shoulder. “Ow. Woman. You wanted to know. All about it. The whole damn program. The freaky elixir.”

“You made me think I did something wrong,” she said, unapologetic. “But it’s you. Nothing wrong with them but the elixir. Fuck you, Castle. There’s nothing wrong with them. There is nothing wrong with my sons.”

She shoved on him again, and he actually stumbled - so surprised by her vehemence, and her anger, that she got to him. 

She spun out of the closet and marched up the stairs. “I need you to carry them downstairs.” Bitterness made her voice as sharp as a blade. “But only if you can check the attitude. I don’t want them knowing their dad thinks they’re freaks.”

Castle was on her before she could even get halfway up, jerking her by the arm back into his chest. She stumbled this time, missing the step, but he held her there, trapped by his burn of indignation.

“You were the one,” he growled. “You were the one who took one look at my hand and ran. You were the one who-”

“What.” She twisted her arm in his grip. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You ran from me.”

Her mouth dropped open.

Castle eased her away from him, feeling drained of everything. Washed out. She recovered enough to find the step, but she sat down hard, her head in her hands.

“Kate?”

She lifted her face to him, a hollow laugh in her throat. “You were bleeding, and then you were fine. I hurt you. But you were fine.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around her torso.

Castle sank to the step below hers, his back against her shins. As far as explanations went, it only told him she was still freaking out about his - condition.

“It just suddenly made sense,” she whispered. “What he was doing to me. Why he was doing it. And I thought, I thought, God, if he made those boys perfect? If he made them like you... and I murdered him for it.”

Castle stiffened, turned blindly for her, catching the back of her neck and gripping her hard. “Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you dare regret it. You set us free. All of us. Not least yourself.”

“He made them perfect,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

“He forced them on you. That is not okay.”

She sobbed. Sobbed. The tears came fast and violent, ripped out of her like a force, and Castle had to wrap his arms around her and drag her down into his lap. He rocked her back and forth on the step, combing her hair back, damp as it was, his chin resting on the top of her head.

For a long time, he couldn’t say anything. Her sobbing was too loud for words. But when she began to shudder and falter, he put his mouth to her ear and said the only thing that was true.

“You made them perfect,” he whispered. “You did that. Loving them, giving them something to live for, to love in return. That’s what matters, that’s what life is, and I never had it until you and those boys. He couldn’t possibly have made them like this - beautiful, loving boys.”

Kate twisted in his lap, her legs twining around him, her arms tightening around his torso. Her cheek brushed his as she got close. “You too, Rick. They’re half yours. Half of how good and beautiful they are - things I see in you. Wyatt’s happy nature, James’s willingness to try even if he’ll fail. That’s from you.” She took a juddering breath, and he felt her tears on her cheek, the soft touch of her fingers as she cradled his jaw. “You’re not a freak. Oh, love, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

\-----


	28. Chapter 28

That is not okay.

Kate tightened her hand in his and made the slow walk towards the modest split-level home. They had parked the Land Rover out front on the street, the two of them silent in the car, both a little more battered than they’d expected to be.

He forced them on you. That is not okay.

She knew that. She had known that somewhere in her head - her soul - that it wasn’t okay. What John Black had done to her, what the medical team at that facility kept doing to her. She had known it.

But somewhere along the way, she had stopped feeling it. Stopped feeling everything. And now the urge to cry was choking up her throat again and she found herself stepping up at Castle’s back and pressing her cheek to his shoulder blade.

He smelled like clean aftershave. Fresh. A hint of scent behind his ear. 

Like her dad.

Kate’s hand was still held tightly in his, and when he used his free hand to ring the bell, she stepped even closer, her hips bumping his side, their tangled fingers caressing her groin.

“You’re gonna do fine,” he said quietly. The first words he’d spoken to her since standing her up on the stone steps and murmuring, I’ll carry the boys down to Colin, and we’ll go.

She nodded, determined to do this. She had already made that choice down at the river, and just because she was shaking and maybe falling apart didn’t mean she could back down. Talking to a sketch artist was another step in the right direction, towards reclaiming life. 

Not her own life, no. Her life was gone, gone. Never to be found. 

She wanted life for those boys. She wanted-

That is not okay.

Oh, God, it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay at all, and she wanted her mom. She didn’t want to be a mom, she wanted her mom to wrap her up and not let go (she had smelled like the purple ink in ditto machines and stale perfume and musty law books, and when Kate had been very little, her mother had come into the room late at night and kissed her cheeks and forehead and woken her just to whisper good night I love you, Katie, and the scent had always followed her back down into dreams)-

The door flung open. “Sorry, sorry, rushing in from the backyard. Come in, come in.” A sudden form, pear-shaped, a woman’s hand gesturing fast, reaching out for her so that she flinched back, stayed only by the tug of Castle’s entwined fingers with hers.

“Skittish, I know. Don’t I know it. I’m talking a mile a minute, but that’s how it is. I was gardening in the back, thought I could get it in before you showed. Eddie’s out back with me, keeping me company, but he don’t move so fast. The chair, you understand. Here, this way. You’re the Rileys? Come on, come on, this way.”

Kate was breathless just listening to the constant noise of words, but there was a comfort in being required to say absolutely nothing in return. She could follow the woman through the dim interior of their home, stepping down into the lowered living room and towards the beckoning sunlight of the back patio.

Castle was right at her side, his hand still enmeshed in hers. When they got to the back door, and the woman twisted the knob, Castle’s hand untangled and trailed up her tricep to her nape, squeezing gently.

He touched his lips to that spot behind her ear that made her stomach flip, and the woman gestured them outside.

Kate went, walking from shadows into brilliant sunlight. She saw nothing at first, and she paused, dazzled, on the concrete patio. 

Castle must see better than she could, or his eyes reacted faster (how long had she been under those steady humming fluorescent bulbs?), because he stepped past her, nudging her alongside him with a touch of his fingers at her hip.

She let him guide her until her vision cleared, and then she saw the middle-aged man in the wheelchair pulled up to an umbrellaed table. His wife, evidently, was pulling out wrought-iron chairs and patting them, indicating they should sit, and Castle took over for the woman, holding her chair for her.

Not that she needed it. Not that she couldn’t sit down and drag the chair up to the table herself - and Castle didn’t do it for her either, not really. It would look silly and awkward for him to wrestle with a wrought-iron chair like this, but for some reason the very pointlessness of his heartfelt gesture made her feel better.

I’m here, I’ll help any way I can.

Or maybe, simply, Sit beside me.

And that was enough; that was all she needed.

Kate held out her hand to the sketch artist across the table. “I’m Kate,” she told him warmly. She released his hand to squeeze Castle’s bicep, still smiling at the man. “And this is my husband, Josh. Thank you for doing this.”

“Well, you’re paying me for my time, but I have to admit. I have a soft spot for the victims. After what happened to me.”

Kate blinked, glanced to Castle. They had gone over the bare essentials of their cover. Names, mugging, etc. What had happened to the sketch artist?

“The chair,” the man explained. “Held up at gunpoint, and when I gave the guy my wallet and keys, he made me turn to face the wall. And then he shot me in the back. Left me to die in an alley.”

Her breath caught.

Castle’s hand came to her knee under the table, and she realized belatedly that she was gripping his bicep so hard her fingers were cramped into a claw.

She released him, dropped her hands to her lap.

“So, Kate,” the wheelchair-bound man said. “Shall we get started?”

\-----

Kate’s hands framed either side of the final sketch; the look on her face spelled trouble. Castle didn’t know in what direction it might come, but he knew it was building like a storm.

“How’s that, Mrs Riley?” Eddie, the sketch artist, settled his charcoal pencil against the armrest of his wheelchair. He looked, Castle thought, self-satisfied.

“It’s - exactly - it’s him exactly. All of them,” Kate answered. Her voice was thick, but she was staring at the images before her.

When Eddie had finished the first drawing and had passed it across the table, Kate had barely looked at it. She had focused instead on recalling details of the second man - mugger, they’d told Eddie and his wife.

Castle had seen it in her before, how she put blinders on until the job was done. She was extremely good at that, focusing on the job to the exclusion of all else. Sometimes Castle himself had been the job, so that whatever emotion or feeling was mere hindrance, minor obstacle to her determination.

But now that it was done, Kate was left adrift in that ocean. Colin’s same ocean, only Kate’s was composed of all those feelings she’d shunted, dismissed, repressed.

Eddie only sat there; his wife was silent at Castle’s other side. They seemed to understand, as if it had happened again and again. They knew what it was to be the victim.

Kate picked up the first sketch, then the second, and finally the last, and she stacked them carefully. She lifted her head to Eddie. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” the artist told her. “Doing what I can. Strike back. Don’t let them keep you down. You keep fighting.”

That was their cue to leave. Castle pushed back his chair and stood up, shook their hands. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate your willingness to accommodate us.” Eddie was wheeling out from the table and escorting them to the back gate in the fence, his wife doddering behind, dead-heading the flowers as they walked, tossing the browned stems back towards the patio.

Kate held the sketches carefully, and Castle took her by the elbow, gently, rubbing his thumb at the back of her arm. When Kate moved onto the circle stepping stones that daisy-chained down the front yard, Castle was right at her side, offering good-byes and gratitude over their shoulders.

“Do you know them?” she said. Castle remote unlocked the car and opened the passenger door for her. She didn’t get in. “They look familiar. You knew-”

“I think one,” he admitted. “Black liked a certain kind of person, liked to fuck with people. You know.”

“I know,” she got out, moving now to climb into the car. But she was still facing him, legs dangling down with the door open. “And if you fought him on it...”

Castle laid his hands on her thighs as she trailed off. “Yeah. There were a few people he went back to time and again because they did that - fought back in some way, showed backbone or self-determination. But in the end, they had to fall in line.”

“Which one?” she whispered.

“The last.”

“He was nice to me.” 

Castle rubbed his thumbs over her knees and leaned in, kissed her softly. And then again when her tension remained, nudging his lips against hers until she sighed and knocked her cheek against his.

That nudge of bone to bone she did, had done, in the facility. The only way she’d had to show those boys love.

He would gladly take it.

“He was nice to you,” he murmured softly. “Then I won’t gut him like an animal.”

Kate flinched, and he felt sorry for saying it. She gripped the material of his dress shirt, tugging him closer. “No gutting him. No killing him, Castle. Enough of that. Plus he might know more about the place, about who Black might have been working with.”

Castle frowned.

“You know I’m right,” she said, shaking him a little. Some of her confidence had returned, now that she was talking logistics and mission. He understood that too. “Castle, you’re not killing him. He was nice to me. And I don’t mean comparatively. I don’t mean, he was the lesser of two evils. He was actually nice. He asked me questions about... me.”

Castle let her go, rubbing his hands down her thighs briskly before orienting her knees towards the front well. “Here, start the car, babe. It’s hot as fuck.” He handed over the keys.

“You have the worst language,” she muttered, taking them. She pulled her legs up and leaned out for the door, shut it when he had cleared the arc. Castle thumped the metal and came around the front of the car, reached for the driver’s door.

It was locked.

He startled to a stop, jerked out of his own head, and glanced around, up-

Kate was smirking as she leaned over and flipped up the lock.

She’d locked him out. As a joke. Laughing at him.

He opened the door and hauled himself inside, listening to her giggle at him in the soft whirr of air conditioning. He reached across the console and caught the back of her neck, pulled her forward.

His kiss was rough if grateful, aggressive even as his whole heart melted for her.

She was still smirking at him when he pulled away from the sketch artist’s home.

\-----

“What do you think?” Castle was saying as he spread out the sketches on the bar. Kate held James by the hand and walked hunched over towards the living room, following the boy’s lead, though she glanced back at Castle and Colin.

The brothers had brought out dossiers and their laptop computers, were comparing notes on the sketches. Colin looked thoughtful and serious and somehow more like Castle this way, as if his true nature came out when he wasn’t self-conscious about how he appeared - even to her.

“You know any of them?”

“I don’t think so,” Colin sighed, shaking his head. He-

“Mama.”

Kate turned around, dumbfounded by the boy who was leaning out by her hand, urging her forward. “Sorry, James. What were you trying to show me?”

He flashed her a shy smile and tugged, and she went forward with him and crossed into the living room. All of their toys had been pulled out and scattered across the room, but James headed for the wood coffee table and patted its surface.

Kate took that as a cue to sit, so she crossed her legs and plopped down. James gave her a sly look from the side of his face, as if in approval, and he reached out and took a little matchbox car, began pushing it towards her.

He wanted to play.

With her.

Kate grinned and cupped his face in her hands, kissed both his cheeks. He made a disgruntled noise and gave her a look for it, but she kissed him again, just for that, and his indignation broke into that bashful, overwhelmed smile he always gave her.

“Hey, baby, of course I’ll play with you. This is new, huh?” She released him and took the car he pushed her way, flicked it with her finger to send it flying back to him.

James laughed, delight catching him by surprise it seemed, and he went crawling after the car as it sailed off the end of the table. He came running back with it, slapped it down in front of her, and she gave it a big shove this time.

“Mama, Mama, me!”

Kate turned and saw Wyatt heading for them, a car clutched in each hand, diving around Colin’s legs at the bar to fling himself into the living room.

“Wy, watch out, little daredevil. Come here. We can all play.”

“Hey, Kate, this ‘nice’ guy-?”

She turned from the coffee table, Wyatt trying to climb into her lap, James pushing on her other side for her attention. Colin was waving the sketch of one of her trainers.

“What about him?” she said.

“Castle thinks he was in the military with him. Military intelligence. If I showed you a photo from about ten years ago, could you-”

“Of course,” she said quickly, half standing, leaving the boys to their cars. “I can ID him. You give me a photo array, and I can pick them out. No matter how much they’ve aged.”

“Come here, then. I have it on my screen now.”

Kate scrambled to her feet, heard the boys ditching their trucks and following her. She got to the kitchen and glanced back, only to find James and Wyatt hot on her heels, grinning.

They thought it was a game.

She came around the bar and glanced at Colin’s laptop. Castle was braced against the granite with his hands in fists on the counter, like he didn’t approve. Like he wasn’t happy.

“What’s wrong?” she said, nodding her her chin to him even as she stared at the photos before her. Military enrollment records, it seemed, and she had no idea how Colin had gotten these. “Is this illegal?”

“It’s illegal in a sense,” Colin muttered.

“Yes,” Castle answered. “And nothing’s wrong, Kate. It’s just not ideal.”

Breaking into... wherever it was Colin had access to right now. She tried to look fast, skimming her eyes over the photos, but she had to take over from Colin’s scrolling, her fingers down the trackpad.

She felt little hands at the backs of her knees and dipped down to touch the top of a boy’s head in reassurance. “Give me a second,” she murmured. “We’ll play after this.”

Castle came around the bar and bent down, scooped up James, knocking an elbow into his brother to prompt Colin to get the other one. Colin huffed but pulled Wyatt up into his arms as well, and now they flanked her, one at each side, watching her run through file after file, scanned into pdfs, the photos a little grainy.

Wyatt leaned out from Colin, tried to get a grip on her shirt. She untangled his fingers, sparing him barely a look as she kissed his little hand. Castle was standing close enough that James was pressed into her shoulder, and the little boy seemed content with that.

“Mama.” Wyatt, urging her, calling her. “Mama, me.”

“In a minute,” she said abstractly. File after file. Faces began to blur; guys looked familiar because they all had the same square jars and buzzed hair cut. Each of the-

Kate stopped, frozen.

Eastman, Mark. Captain. 

“This is him,” she breathed. “Oh my God. This is him.”

Castle reached out and yanked the laptop towards him, cursed with such a violent vitriol that Kate flinched. “I fucking know him. I know him. He was assigned to me in Military Intelligence. Fucking hell. Fuck. I knew him. I’m gonna fucking-”

She laid her hand on his arm and stayed him. “You will not kill him. Do you hear me? I want - I want to see him. I want to talk to him.”

“What?” Colin cried out. “No. You are not-”

“I’m going with you.”

“No.” Colin snapped the laptop shut.

She made a grab for it but Castle reached out and gripped her upper arm. “You can’t-”

“Don’t you dare tell me I can’t,” she hissed, shoving him off. James ducked his head down to Castle’s shoulder and she stilled, closing her fingers around her son’s leg. Trying to calm the wild flux of her heart rate. “I’m going. With you, with you all. Fucking family road trip, Rick Castle. He was nice to me. And Black got rid of him so damn fast-” She shook her head, eased up her touch on James’s leg. “I just want to know why he - I need to talk to him. I have to understand. I... need to do this.”

For a long time, there was nothing from either of the men, rigid and immobile and unyielding at her side. And then Castle made a gesture and Colin huffed and let the laptop clunk back to the counter, put Wyatt down on his feet.

“Your fucking funeral,” Colin muttered, stalking off.

Kate kept her eyes on Castle. James laid against his chest, sweet and imploring. Who? Her, most likely.

She stepped in and touched James’s back, lightly kissed his cheek, ruffled his hair. And then she turned her gaze to Castle, skimmed her fingers up his spine, teased his nape, caressed his cheek.

“You’re with us,” he said roughly, swallowing. “We’ll all have to go and - but when I say, what I say - you have to follow, Beckett. You have to follow me in the field.”

“I will,” she promised. “I can. You keep Mark Eastman alive and I can do that.”

Castle closed his eyes, and his forehead crashed down into hers. “This is a terrible idea.”

She nudged her nose against his, and then again, barely glancing over his lips with her mouth. 

“Mama, me!”

Castle chuckled shakily against her cheek, and then he squatted down with James to reach Wyatt’s level. “Mommy’s going to play with you now. Come on, pipsqueak.”

Kate followed him and their sons into the living room.

Mark Eastman. He had been nice to her.

\-----

She insisted on pumping that night, despite the boys having been nursed. It seemed like, whatever she had left, she was going to give and more. More. She was going to do more than she could or ought to, that was for sure.

He couldn’t stop her. He wasn’t sure it was a wise idea to try.

He thought to give her privacy, then thought better of it at one look of her face. Wan and lonely. Instead, he crawled into bed with her after putting both boys to sleep, but he didn’t slide into his spot at her back. He sat beside her and let her pump, giving her a hand if she needed it, being helpful if he could.

And he talked. “Colin is leaving in the morning,” he told her. “He’ll do some research off-site-”

“Off-site means what?” she asked. Her voice sounded husky, low. But not warm. Just exhausted. He had checked her blood after dinner and it was a little low, so she’d drunk another bottle of pedialyte and kept it down, and he’d felt that was a win.

But she was tired. “Off-site means he might have to hack into some databases from a secure installation. Which would make it legal, quasi-legal, anyway, whereas doing it from here would put us all at risk.”

“Is he at risk doing that?” she said sharply. “Castle. That’s not okay if he-”

“It’s the job, sweetheart. What we do. If he goes in to one of our locations, he’s just going into work. They’ll be surprised, sure. He doesn’t often show up when he’s supposed to.”

She frowned at him, her brows in a severe line, and he watched her rub absent-mindedly at the ring around her breast, the buffer pad which was suctioned by vacuum to her nipple and pumping milk. It seemed completely inhumane, but she barely seemed to register it.

“After Colin gets some research done, we’ll have locations on the other two trainers. You can work with the sketch program, and we’ll send the results to him with whatever I can suss out from here.”

“Suss out?” she murmured, lifting one of those eyebrows.

She was teasing him. He could take it; he liked it, despite how limp the words came out of her mouth, tired as she was. “Mm, official CIA term.”

“You have a dictionary?”

“A lexicon, if you will.”

“Lexicon,” she hummed, as if she liked the word. He liked her liking the word; he loved the way she hummed at him and smiled her secret smile.

“Suss is a real word,” he defended lightly.

“Sure it is.”

“I can look it up. Prove it to you.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” she smiled. “Only that it’s ancient.”

“Ancient.” He tried to scoff, but he felt pricked by something undefinable. “Am I that old?”

“Baby, I’m that old. Suss is... some kind of 30s swinger at a jazz bar wanting to hit on me.”

“In a former life, you were a flapper girl?”

“Thirties isn’t flapper girl,” she said primly.

He scowled. “Well, what is it then? Thirties swinger at a jazz bar hitting on you and you’re not a flapper girl?”

“I’m the jazz singer,” she said promptly.

He grinned, knew he had her. “Sing me something.”

She flushed bright pink and swatted his shoulder, as if he was teasing.

“Sing to me. Like you sing to them.”

“Them who?” she muttered. “I don’t sing.”

“The boys. You said you were the jazz singer, so-”

“I don’t sing to the boys,” she said. Something sharp in it. He ducked his head and couldn’t help seeing the redness ringing her breast from the pump. “I don’t... do I sing to them?”

“A little,” he murmured. “You hum something. I don’t know. Tell me to shut up, Kate. I hate watching you do this to yourself, and I’m trying to distract us both. Kick me out.”

“No,” she sighed, and glanced down at her breasts, double-pumped. “No, it’s done anyway.”

More than the night before, he saw from the bottles. “Need - want help?”

“Um. You can put them in the fridge while I clean everything, clean up. I - might shower. Just... rinse off.”

“Okay, yeah.” He didn’t try to touch her as she turned off the pump and the pads released her breasts. She did the unscrewing of the bottles as well, being careful and slow with it, and then she handed them off to him. The plastic was warm against his palms, warm as her own skin, and it made him flush all through his body.

Wanting her. Wanting to bury his face between her breasts.

“Thanks, Castle,” she said quietly.

“Be right back,” he promised, and tried not to look too eager as he left the room.

\-----

Castle heard the shower running when he came back into the bedroom, and he tried to tamp down on the lust curling like tentacles through his body. A glance at the bed showed him that she’d taken the breast pump’s shields in with her to wash them, so he moved immediately for the bathroom door.

Maybe he could join-

Kate yelled.

Something dark and urgent in her shout, more than just surprising her. He was aware of time slowing down, the same feeling he got out in the field when he was anticipating an enemy’s strike. He saw Kate startle in one breath, but before he could orient himself - the steam of the empty shower, the flush, the closeness of the air - she had struck.

It was strange. It happened in a blur, but his eyes saw each movement with the skill and precision of a trained, elixir-augmented man.

Beckett kicked out, her body tilting back as her foot swung towards his head. Castle blocked automatically, caught her by the ankle in the usual self-defense move. But instead of it yanking this woman off her feet, she used her momentum to drive forward into his grip, getting in close-

Getting in close-

Warning bells went off in his head, and he saw the scalpel like a thin silver ribbon. He had been thinking, all along he realized now, scalpel, scalpel and now Beckett came in too close.

Her foot used his own grip as leverage, and the momentum of her kick sent her up and over his head like an acrobat. For a heartbeat, he was so impressed by her skill at sparring that he didn’t realized what she’d done.

He reached back even as he turned to her, and this time the blade skittered across his lowest rib and gouged a chunk out of his side. He caught her wrist, his grip pinched her nerve and she cried out.

The scalpel dropped.

His mission mode was hazy and dark, a veil over his eyes. He struggled to stay standing, felt the blood soaking his side.

Couldn’t be the blood loss. Why was... the lights were going out.

“Oh, God, oh, God,” Kate moaned. 

He released her wrist, but not entirely because he wanted to; she was sobbing. He felt his body lurching, she was trying to catch him, the floor coming up to meet him. His head hit the tile but it was the strange drag on his senses that was alarming.

And then he understood.

Before the jab that had missed his vital organs, she had - actually - stabbed him.

She was that good.

“Oh, God,” she sobbed. “Castle. Castle, please, don’t die-”

It was bad. She had gotten his kidney. He was going into shock.

He was lying on top of her. “Get,” he croaked, fighting to get his hands under him. He fell back to the tile, limbs not working. “Col - help.” 

Kate scrambled out from under him, wracked with sobs, back-pedaling towards the bedroom. Panicking.

She left him there. She left him. 

Everything went dark.

\-----

“I don’t know,” she moaned, pressing her hands to her face. She had to get control of herself. She had to. “I don’t know. I - freaked out.”

Colin stood over her, as if guarding the way between her and the bed where Castle was still unconscious. Her heart was struggling, breath choked out by the panic that clawed through her.

It would help if Colin would-

He sat down. 

She was shaking, but she closed her hands into fists and tucked her arms into her chest. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

“I stitched his kidney,” Colin told her finally. He didn’t trust her. She shouldn’t be trusted. She had no idea what had happened, why she’d even had the scalpel in her hand.

Where did it come from?

It was in her pocket now. She didn’t remember putting it there. She couldn’t find the courage to take it out and hand it over.

“You need help,” Colin muttered, shaking his head. He stood up again and stepped away from her, headed for the bed where Castle was still unconscious. 

She needed help.

“The elixir shot will keep him knocked out for about four hours. He’s going to be furious that I used it on him instead of keeping it for you.”

“He won’t - die?” she asked. Her voice was small; she was shaking everywhere. She couldn’t stop shaking.

“He won’t die.”

Kate let out a breath and buried her forehead in her drawn up knees. “He won’t die,” she breathed.

“Where’s the knife?” Colin said sharply.

She lifted her head, blinked at him.

“Look, Beckett,” he started. “I know you’re damaged. But this house is lined with copper, the walls, in the stone, all of it. Means I can’t sense when there’s a disturbance in the force. So you need to give me that damn knife.”

She couldn’t. “I...”

“Right now.”

Kate stood up, fast, and darted around the chair, putting it between her and Colin. He narrowed his eyes at her.

“You want to ‘freak out’ again and this time stab him in the neck? Pop out his eye-”

“God,” she groaned, jerking backwards. Her spine collided with the stone wall and she yelped, wincing as her head bounced.

“Don’t be an idiot, Beckett. You keep that damn knife and no one can trust you.”

“Leave her alone.”

Kate sobbed, the sound of Castle’s voice dragging up something dark and terrible. She clambered over the chair and darted around Colin, fell to her knees beside the bed. “I’m so sorry. Oh, God, Castle, I’m so sorry.”

“S’okay.” His eyes were slits. His fingers twitched and caught her elbow, and she jerked away from his touch, afraid. Afraid. Fear had seared into her guts. “Kate.”

“She still has the damn knife, Castle. Get her to give it up, and I’ll leave you alone to her tender mercies.”

She pressed her hands into her face, tears clogged in her sinuses, everything pain. “I didn’t mean to - I didn’t know it was you. I don’t...”

“S’okay, honey. Okay.” His fingers curled in the crook of her arm and she buried her face into his bicep, crying so hard now that she couldn’t breathe.

“Make her give up the knife, Castle.”

“Scalpel,” he mumbled. “S’okay. Kate.”

She lifted her head, panic scuttling through her guts. Her chest tightened. His face was pale, lips bloodless.

“You need it, keep it,” he murmured, barely a breath of sound. His eyes closed. “Love you.”

Kate sank back to her heels, her tears so thick she could barely see him. Every sob jerked her body like a string. She realized she was withdrawing the scalpel, almost automatically, without thought, and handing it back to Colin.

Colin took it, and she was alone with Castle.

She sank to the floor and curled up, pressing her face into her arm, trying only to keep breathing.

\-----

Castle cleared his throat and realized he was aware. 

There was a lot of pain but he had experience with pain. He concentrated on the breaths that came in and out, and soon enough the clamor of screaming nerves faded to silence.

Not silence.

He heard breathing under his own, a kind of stalking, inhalations only when his lungs expanded, exhalation as his chest collapsed.

“Kate,” he garbled. His tongue was thick with elixir. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d needed a shot. He was usually too good. “Kate.”

A shadow resolved from the general morass, something cool against his cheek. He found a way to crack open his eyes and there she was. Kneeling beside the bed.

She didn’t look good. “Crawl in here with me,” he mumbled, trying to snag his hand on something of hers.

“God, no,” she sobbed.

She was crying. Fresh tears streaked down her face; she didn’t even bother wiping them away. 

“Come on, Kate,” he husked. Speaking at all seemed insurmountable, overwhelmed whatever energy he’d stored during elixir hibernation. “Need you up here.”

“I’m going to hurt you,” she whispered.

“Won’t. Barely feel it.”

“I can’t control myself,” she cried. “I don’t even know what happened - what I did - why did I - oh, God, I can’t be trusted. I have to-”

“Shh,” he hushed, fisting the loose end of her shirt. His shirt, actually, and at least there was that. “S’okay, love. Want you.”

“I’m gonna hurt-”

“Won’t, won’t. Shot’s doing the job.” He had to rest a moment, just to keep breathing through the clamor of ragged edges.

He felt Kate begin to drift, and he tightened his fist, struggled even with that.

“Don’t make me beg you,” he murmured.

Kate sobbed and then the bed shifted violently under him as she crawled in. He braced himself as best he could, waves of paralyzing agony riding through his body. He tried very hard not to let her see it, but she seemed to collapse to the mattress, heedless of him.

She was still crying. He couldn’t wind an arm around her; he could barely move. “Hm, sweetheart, come closer.”

“Don’t make me hurt you more,” she choked.

“Won’t, won’t, promise. Want you.” He could turn his head now, just enough, and he sighed at the sight of her. “Sorry, so sorry.”

She cried harder, her head crashing into his shoulder. She clutched him, her nails digging into the skin of his forearms. His shirt was gone. He vaguely recalled Colin cursing him out in the bathroom as he dug around in his side.

“Was it kidney?” he got out.

She nodded. She was curled on her side, compact and small.

“S’okay, honey. Over now.”

“I don’t know what happened,” she cried. “I don’t even know how to keep it from happening again.”

“Shellshock,” he sighed. 

“I hurt you. God.”

“Gonna be okay. Promise. Stay right here.”

“And then I - then I freak - I do it again and I freak out and what, what if I - what if I hurt-”

“You might,” he murmured. “You might. Don’t care. Be okay.”

“No.” She groaned. “Not okay.”

His hand fumbled between them, finally found the curve of her ass. He sighed at the flinch of her skin, but he couldn’t find the energy to lift his hand again once it was there. He should. He needed to not panic her any more than she already was.

Castle dragged his hand up to her back, finally able to rest it there. Better. Much better. The curve of her spine was warm. He couldn’t spook her.

“Don’t let me hurt you.”

“You won’t. Even if you do, it’s okay.”

“You can’t die,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to die.”

“That’s good. Me neither. Suddenly have a lot to live for.”

“Don’t say that,” she husked. “I’ll hurt you. I can’t control it. I’m - damaged, Castle. There’s something very wrong with me.”

“We’ll figure it out. Get you help. Be okay.”

“What if-”

“S’okay. All gonna be okay. Stay right here with me.”

She was rigid against him. Her fear penetrated his haze and the pain as well. He wanted only to ease her mind.

“We’ll find a doc,” he mumbled. “Get you shrinked.”

She shivered and turned into him, and it was good, though it trapped his arm under her. He felt the way she shook, and he gathered his strength to turn on his side.

“What - wait - stop,” she gasped.

He rolled with a groan and found the softness of her flesh against his, gave a deep sigh of appreciation at the resistance of her bones, the tension of her muscles. “You feel good. Stay.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered.

“You won’t though,” he promised. “Not any more, Kate.”

She was crying. Again or still. Crying softly. “You can’t promise-”

“I can. I am. You won’t hurt me-”

“What about the boys?” she choked out. “I might hurt-”

“You won’t.” He found a way to touch her hip, the warmth of her skin below the shirt. “Take a second, with a calm heart. You know yourself. You won’t. You’re better than that.”

Kate was shaking against him. He didn’t mind; it just hurt a little. He had the vague sense that he ought to be sleeping it off, but he’d stay awake if she needed him.

He had to be better for her. Pretending she wasn’t deeply traumatized had only pushed her to the edge.

“You won’t hurt them. All that time in the facility, Kate, makes them a part of your psyche, part of the defenses in your head. You won’t hurt them. Me, sure. I’m his. I deserve it. It’s okay. Just stay right here.”

“You don’t deserve it,” she shuddered. “You’re not his. You’re not his.”

“I am. It’s okay. I deserve it, honey. I’m his-”

“You’re mine. I’m making you mine, part of my - what did you call it? My psychosis. You’re part of my psychosis, Rick Castle. Now stop talking, I need to cry.”

He sighed into her hair, felt his body sinking into the sudden softness of hers. She was crying, her tears salty and slick against his neck, but he knew he would soon be fine.

The elixir would work with his already augmented body and he would be healed.

He hoped he could heal her too, somehow; he hoped he could find the magic cure.

\-----

Kate woke - horror slick in her guts as she realized she’d been asleep.

She jerked forward only to groan as her cheek smacked into something, her body flailing in the bed. Hands cradled her, cradled, gentle, easy. 

“Rick?” she gasped.

“You didn’t get much sleep, love.”

She froze, staring up at the man hovering over her. Her heart thumped with a sudden burst of hope.

“Dream?” she croaked.

“Were you dreaming?”

She sat upright, pushing past the sling of his arms, his body, dragging her feet to the floor.

But then she saw the bloodied towels on the floor of the bathroom, the mess of the room. Her heart froze in her chest, and then she jerked around and stared at Castle. “But I - you were hurt. So badly. I hurt you so badly.” Her hand lifted as if to touch, but she curled her fingers in, made a fist.

“You didn’t, sweetheart. Nothing the elixir can’t fix.”

She stared at him, her chest tightening and then releasing, like a panic attack had washed over her and then gone. Gone.

Castle sat down on the mattress beside her. “We’ve got a couple hours before the boys wake. Even still, you’ve - uh - we’ve got enough that I could give them bottles. You could sleep.”

Kate crossed her arms, tucked her elbows into her ribs. “I’m not...” 

“You are tired,” he murmured. His fingers unfurled and touched her cheek. She flinched and he dropped his hand. “You’re exhausted, sweetheart. If you sleep a little more, you’d have the strength to handle whatever comes.”

“You said get shrinked.”

He nodded, his cheeks flushing. “I did. I was being - very honest. The elixir does that too. I didn’t mean to offend-”

“You’re right,” she croaked, then cleared her throat. “You’re right, I need help. I need - I need to not stab you in the back because I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.”

“You - do.”

“Can you - um, I don’t want to tell someone about... I don’t want to talk about what happened, try to explain everything. If I just - told you?”

“If you told me?”

She nodded, pressed her knees together as she tried to keep herself composed. “I could tell you things.”

“You can tell me anything. But. I don’t think it works like that.”

“Does it?”

“It works, if that’s what you’re asking. Psychologists were always on staff. Part of the whole - program.”

She lifted her eyes to him, hungrily drank in the healthy, robust nature of his frame. Not even a strain in him when he moved. “You’re really okay?”

“Good as new, love.”

She pulled her knees up to her chest and circled her arms around her legs. She’d be shaking but weariness had settled in, heavy and hard.

“I do have one shrink suggestion,” Castle said quietly.

She sighed. “Yeah?”

“Stop pumping.”

Kate pressed her face into her knees.

“You’re doing it for them, I know,” he kept going, still quiet. Fiercer for it, sounded like to her. “You want to be sure they have everything they need. But what they need most is you. Their mom. Healthy, stable.”

She groaned.

The bed shifted and she felt his knee against her hip, and then slowly she was pulled into his lap. She couldn’t quite believe he wasn’t hurt, he wasn’t still in the bathroom dying.

Dying.

“You’re on your way to healthy, Kate,” he murmured. “And more stable than anyone has a right to be. But the breast pump is too much. It’s too much, Kate. Puts you over.”

She snaked her arm around his neck, clutched the hair at his nape. “I - need to.”

“No. No more.”

“I have to-”

“No.”

Kate flinched, nearly falling off his lap. Castle caught her, kept her in his arms, strong. She stared at him, heavy in her soul, unable to see clear of any of this.

“I know I have no right to demand things of you.” Castle gripped her knee and tugged her closer. “I damn well don’t want to be like my father. But I can’t stand by while you...” He huffed.

“Lose it.”

He sighed and drew her into his chest. “Yeah. It’s not good for Wyatt and James, either, Kate. You know? If you’re...losing it.” His mouth nudged down against her temple.

She found herself winding her arm around his waist. Slowly. Feeling for the spot. A scar. Something.

Nothing.

“I’m all healed up, sweethe-” Castle paused. “I shouldn’t... it sounds condescending, doesn’t it? That’s why you - I’m sorry. I won’t do that. I won’t-”

Castle took a slow breath in that she could feel with her palm pressed flat to his skin. No scar. Not even a scar where she knew the blood had been. Where Colin had seen it and had cursed so violently and shoved her out of the bathroom, locked her out.

“Just Kate,” he whispered. “Makes us equal, both of us trained for this. You’re scary competent, you know? I didn’t even see it coming - didn’t see it until after it had come. I’m impressed.”

Kate flinched.

“No, don’t go,” he murmured. “It’s a compliment.”

“Compliment,” she echoed, pulling her arms into her chest. 

“You and me, Kate, we could be the dynamic duo. Never seen someone with moves as fast as yours.”

“Damn it,” she croaked.

“Hey, it’s a good thing,” he said quickly, catching her before she could slide off his lap. Kate didn’t even struggle, and she didn’t know why she wasn’t struggling. “You’re bad-ass. In the best way.”

“I nearly killed you.”

“No harm, no foul.”

Kate flinched, realized every time he complimented her, the panic choked her throat. She had to stop; she had to unlearn all the crazy in her head. He had said she was badass. “I am?”

“Fuck, yeah. You know how many people have gotten the drop on me?”

“Um-”

“Zero.” Castle reached in for her hand and gripped her wrist, then suddenly rubbed his thumb into the cup of her palm. “I’m faster, smarter, and better than most everyone. Not even Colin gets the drop on me. No one, Kate. But you.”

She bit her bottom lip and frowned at him. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

He stood up from the bed, releasing her hand. “Hey, you and me, Kate, we’ll work on this. I’ll stop looking at you like this sweet girl who...” He shook his head. “It’s patronizing. I know that now. Learned my lesson. And you’ll stop pumping, right? And tell me if you’re - if it’s getting closer to that line?”

“I don’t know where the hell that line would be,” she muttered, scraping a hand through her hair. She felt brittle but exhausted. She was getting jerked from one extreme to the next. 

“But you agree.” Castle stepped back, as if he thought he had to avoid touching her so she could make her own decision.

She had stabbed him. She had freaked out and stabbed him - a fatal blow - and he had survived by the grace of God, and she didn’t want to do that to those two boys upstairs.

“I won’t - use the pump,” she said, resting her head in her hand, propped on her knee, not looking at him. 

Two boys. Upstairs asleep for a few more hours. Completely innocent. And she might have taken her cracked, damaged shit straight to their bed and-

“Good,” Castle said. “That’s good. We’ll work on this together, Kate. Partners. We’ll slow this down, take it easy again, and I’ll find someone for you to talk to, okay?”

“Talk to.”

“The CIA has reams of psychologists, swee-” He shook his head, wincing at her. “Sorry. Hard to stop. We have CIA psychologists who have heard some bad shit. They know exactly how to handle this, what to say, how to help.”

She nodded, curling up tighter on the mattress. He was apologizing for calling her sweetheart? 

“Okay, so that’s already two positive steps we can take to-”

“Castle,” she muttered, glancing away from him.

“Yeah,” he said. Quiet again. “Sorry. I’ll - uh, you should sleep while you can. I’ll wake you when breakfast is ready.”

“I won’t sleep.”

Castle put his hands on his hips, glanced at her.

She shrugged. She felt on the edge of breaking. Falling right off. Her gaze darted to the open bathroom door, the bloodied towels. “I can’t - I can’t close my eyes. If you’re - not here. I can’t-”

Castle was immediately in front of her, cupping her face, his eyes searching hers. “Okay. Change of scenery, then. Come out to the couch, we’ll watch the sunrise, talk. Talk until you fall asleep again.”

She nodded, taking a shaky breath.

His hand came to hers, enfolded her fingers with a tight squeeze. “You’re gonna be okay, Kate. It gets better.”

Except how could she ever trust herself again?

\-----


	29. Chapter 29

The second Castle had sat down with her - opposite corners; she had skittered away from him - she’d fallen asleep. Tucked into a tight ball, her arms wrapped around her torso like a straitjacket. Holding herself together.

Broke his heart.

Time to change things. Time to be real about the shit that had been done to her, stop pretending he could fix everything.

Castle stood, ignoring the twinge in his back, and pulled the blanket from the back of the couch. He unfolded it and laid it carefully over Kate, stroked a wisp of hair away from her cheek, being gentle.

“Fucking hell, brother.”

Castle winced and turned his head to see Colin coming through the kitchen. His brother bore down on him, gripped his upper arm as if to prop him up. He didn’t look happy.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Colin hissed. At least he kept his voice down.

“I woke and Kate was-”

“You have two hours left before the elixir’s cycle is up. Two hours to fucking rest or else you strain your systems. You fucking know that.”

Castle shrugged his brother off, but he eased himself into a chair, sinking down with a sigh of relief. “I know,” he admitted. “But I couldn’t let her see me-”

“Too late. She fucking stabbed you. Twice, you moron. She’s seen you bleeding to death in your bathroom.”

Castle winced. “Shit. The bathroom is a bloodied mess. I need to clean-”

“No fucking way. You want it clean, you wait for the elixir to do its job. Fuck, I’ll clean the damn bathroom.”

“Scared you,” he said softly, glancing up at Colin.

His brother scrubbed both hands over his face, growled. “Didn’t feel a thing until you passed out. The fucking copper in the walls. Felt her sure enough, screaming, blind fucking fear clawing at my guts. And then you were gone. Gone.”

“I blacked out,” he tried to explain.

“I fucking know you blacked out.” Colin swore and sank down to the coffee table, glanced over his shoulder at Kate with something dark. Castle didn’t like the look in his eyes.

“Colin. Don’t you dare-”

“She’s dangerous.”

“She’s the mother of my sons.”

“She’s dangerous.”

“I love her.”

Colin groaned and sank his head into his hands. “She got the drop on you.”

“I wasn’t expecting it. I know now, Colin. Listen to me. I know now what she’s capable of, I know what can happen when she breaks-”

“Does she fucking ever break. Holy fuck. She’s damaged in so many places-”

“Don’t fucking say it.”

Colin glared at him. All unsaid.

But Castle knew. “She agreed to a therapist.”

“No fucking therapist can see her. What is she supposed to say, Castle? She can’t go into a therapist’s office and use a cover - not and really deal with the shit she’s carrying in her head. And no fucking way can she tell a CIA shrink what the fuck our father was doing.”

Castle’s heart sank.

Colin shook his head. “She’s so far gone, Castle, it’s not worth-”

Castle stood to his feet. “Don’t you ever say that again.”

Colin glanced up at him, then rolled his eyes. “Sit down, brother.”

Castle refused. “She’s worth it. It’s worth it. I’ve never cared before, Colin, never thought I had it in me to care. Dead inside. Until her. She’s worth it.”

“She’s dangerous.”

“I love her.”

“She doesn’t love you.”

Castle sank back down to the chair, eyes riveted on Kate. His voice was quiet when it came, but strong enough. “She doesn’t have to love me back.”

“Fucking hell.”

“Worth the burn.”

Colin was silent for a long time, and Castle fell into reverie, staring at Kate and counting the rise and fall of her chest, tracing his eyes over the compact, deadly lines of her body.

“What if she stabs one of those boys?”

“She won’t.”

“What if she does?”  
Castle gritted his teeth. “I’m not just being hopelessly optimistic here. The boys are part of her defense mechanism - the trigger if you will. Her whole mental structure is built around keeping them safe. If she breaks-”

“When she breaks-”

“If she breaks, it’s in defense of them. They’re at her back, so to speak; they’re what she’s fighting for.”

Colin didn’t answer, but Castle knew he was right. Part of the psychosis, like Kate had inadvertently called it, though he’d say self-defense. Her self-defense mechanisms had kicked in hard, and to his detriment, but she would always protect those boys.

“Well,” Colin said dryly, “they’re the more perfect soldier, aren’t they? They’re equipped to take a few knife wounds and keep-”

“It wasn’t a knife. It was a scalpel. If it was a knife, I’d have died.”

“You nearly did.”

“You had it under control.”

Colin growled and kicked his shin. “She’s dangerous. She can’t be fixed, Castle. She does something to you again and I might not be here. Or she has a flashback and her PTSD overrides my ability to figure out what the fuck is going on. Or she-”

“We’ll work on it. Buddy system if we have to. But I know now. I know what sets her off. I’m learning.”

“She ought to be put down-”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Castle growled. “That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t exactly a joke.”

Castle kicked him back. But he felt the twinge again, deep in his muscles, and sat perfectly still, glaring at his brother, projecting every ounce of rage and loathing he could towards the idea Colin had so casually tossed off and then bitterly affirmed.

Colin winced, rubbed his temples with both hands. “Alright, knock it off, asshole. No more jokes, bad as they are. She’s need to be watched. You say you know now, you’re going to avoid setting her off. But I don’t see-”

“I can just see it on her face - she comes back fighting. It happens with the breast pump, so I told her no more. And when I - well, I was treating her like... like my personal pet. Like he must have. Our father.”

Colin lifted an eyebrow.

“Doing everything for her, ignoring her self-will, calling her pet names and-”

“I don’t think that was it,” Colin muttered. “The girl needs someone to tell her what to do after three years like that. You can’t come out to absolute freedom and not have an adjustment period.”

“I just... I think I’ve been using her.”

Colin put his elbows on his knees, leaned in over them. “Oh, yeah?”

Castle swallowed thickly. “Yeah.”

“Using her... how? For sex?”

Castle took a shaky breath. “Yeah.”

“She’s supposed to wait until that three-week appointment-”

“Well, no, I’m not - there’s not - uh. I’m not fucking her.”

Colin grunted and kicked lightly at his foot. “What the hell are you talking about then?”

“She’s fucking me,” he muttered, shame burning his cheeks. “Or well, I mean, she’s - uh - you know. Getting me off.”

“You’re using her for blow jobs.”

Castle growled. “I’m - not - she’s not just - it’s... fuck.”

“Well, no, it’s not. Unless you’ve gotten seriously creative-”

“I’m using her emotionally,” he blurted out.

Colin sat up straighter.

Castle’s heart was pounding from the confession. “She’s like a drug. Touching her makes me feel... I feel with her, and she feels things too, for me, about me, and I can feel that in me, like this - oh, God, I can’t even - it’s addictive. I can’t stop. I just want her all the time, want her to want me, and she does, and it’s everything, and I take and take and-”

“Okay, okay, fuck. Fuck. I do not need to hear about this.” Colin grunted and scrubbed his hands over his face again. “Fuck, the copper is for a reason.”

“Sorry,” he croaked.

“You’re fucking using her for - shit.”

“Yeah.”

“This is messed up. For emotional fucking. That’s what you’re doing. Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Castle pressed his hand over his eyes, his guts knotted up. “I gotta stop. I can’t do that to her. Make demands on her, make - manipulate her just so I feel good about myself.”

“Manipulate,” Colin whispered. “After what he’s done to her-”

“Oh, God,” Castle choked. His father. John Black. That’s where he got it from, that’s who he’d learned this from. Oh, fuck. “No wonder I’m setting her off. No fucking wonder she stabbed me. I won’t leave her alone. I play the same damn games.”

Castle’s hands were shaking. He felt sick. 

“Stop that. At least you love her.”

“Didn’t Black say he loved us?” Castle husked.

Silence.

And then, Colin’s whispered, fuck.

The two brothers stared at each other.

“It’s the only thing I know,” Castle got out. “It’s the only way to show her I-” He shuddered hard. “But it’s not an excuse.”

“Rick,” Colin tried.

“It’s not an excuse.”

\-----

Castle carried two awake little boys into the kitchen and eased them onto the counter, bypassing Kate entirely to let her sleep. Colin had retreated to his own room to work on research, but his brother hadn’t been able to say a word to comfort him. There was no comfort in knowing, really for the first time, what he’d been doing to her. 

He was just going to have to be better.

He had no idea how, but he would just have to. He wasn’t going to be the reason these boys didn’t have a mother. He wasn’t going to be the one who pushed her over the edge.

Castle pulled two bottles out of the fridge and shook them a little, watching the milk coat the plastic sides. Cool to the touch, but he could warm it up some. No more of this either. No more. He was going to be paying attention from now on.

At least his kidney was fully healed. He wasn’t pissing blood. The chem tests were normal. 

New start. Not many people got those. Second chance. He’d do better by Kate. Treat her like an adult, not a princess in a tower who needed saving. Not a hostage to his emotional needs. Not-

“Mama.”

James drew his knees under him and tried to stand on the granite, but Castle snagged the back of his onesie. “Hold up, little monkey. I’m gonna feed you.”

“Mama?” he said, twisting in Castle’s grip to look towards the living room.

“Mama’s had a rough night, son. Leave her alone for now.”

“Daddy,” Wyatt piped up, grinning at them.

“Yeah,” Castle said, ducking the boy’s head with a hand. “Just Daddy this morning.” He tugged on James once more in warning, but the boy remained standing.

Just Daddy.

Terrible words. Everything was twisting up inside him all over again; he still wasn’t steady. He was transmitting it to James, he knew, because the boy was trying to peer over the kitchen table and the couch to get a look at his mother.

“Mama,” James said again, voice pitching only a little louder. Only a little. His eyes slid to Castle if expecting rebuke.

Or a blow.

“Not right now, Jay,” he whispered. But he let go of the boy. He was stranded on the counter, and he’d been in enough obstacle training to know he couldn’t just walk off the edge. 

James watched him, brow furrowing. He knew too much.

Castle turned away, put the two bottles in the microwave and punched up thirty seconds. He dug through the cabinets under Wyatt’s feet to find the nursing bottles that Kate had scored at Walgreens. They had some kind of special nipple for even flow or - whatever. Castle had no idea. 

“You guys need to start learning how to drink out of your own cup. And we’ll take you outside again today, expose you to the world.” He flicked Wyatt’s ear and the boy giggled. Somehow, it lightened Castle’s heart a little to hear it. “Yeah, you’re gonna love it.”

James was easing away from them, side-stepping across the granite as if Castle wouldn’t notice. 

“You can explore,” Castle told him, lifting an eyebrow. “But don’t you dare do something stupid, kid.”

James eyed him and stepped a little farther away.

Castle shrugged. “I’m warning you now. You fall and hurt yourself, I’m not taking you to the ER or some shit like that. You know why? Because your body is like mine. You don’t need it. I won’t even wake your mom, Jay. You hear me? So choose wisely.”

Tough love. But he knew it was bluster. What kind of a father was he going to be? Could he even at all do this right? His own father was no example. It would mean that Castle would swing wildly the opposite direction, and the boys would grow up indulged and spoiled.

He didn’t know how to fucking do this. Any of it. He didn’t know how to love. But he was doing it anyway, wasn’t he? Loving blindly, recklessly, foolishly.

Castle turned his back on them and opened the microwave door as it finished its cycle. He pulled the bottles out and shook them up, making sure the liquid was warmed evenly, and then he began pouring the breastmilk into the two special feeding bottles.

When he glanced to James from the corner of his eye, the boy had squatted down near the long end of the counter, as if peering off the edge. Cautious enough, Castle saw. Smart. Testing it first with a long look of recon. “I’m warning you, Jay. Long way down.”

He turned back around as he screwed on the nipple of the last bottle, handed it to Wyatt. 

“Here you go, Wy. Drink up.”

Wyatt took the bottle with both hands and seemed to not know what to do. Castle nudged the bottom of the bottle up with a finger and Wyatt brought it to his mouth, and after a moment, suckled.

“See?” Castle murmured. “You got it. Now for your brother. James. Get over here, you daredevil.”

James sidled up to his brother and squatted down again, reaching for the bottle in Castle’s hands. He gave it over and James studied his brother a moment as if to learn, and then he mimicked Wyatt and began to pull at the nipple with his mouth.

After a moment, he seemed to get the hang of it, and a kind of surprised joy lit his eyes.

“That’s right. Good job, guys. You got it. That’s breakfast. Plus some bananas that I’m gonna cut up for you. We’ll have a nice and quiet morning.”

He was already peeling the banana from the bowl on the counter as he talked, and he kept a running commentary, soft-spoken, to keep the boys’ attention. He didn’t want them looking for Kate, not now. He wasn’t entirely sure how stable Kate would be when she woke.

He had just put a plate of sliced bananas between the boys when he saw her stirring on the couch. She seemed to come-to slowly, a shudder through her shoulders, a push up from the cushions. She swayed, pressed a hand to her head.

And then she stiffened. Cast a swift, scared look across the room.

When she saw them, something terrible and frightening came over her, but in it was relief. Which Castle didn’t understand at all.

She stood, and wrapped her arms around her torso, the thin black t-shirt hanging to her thighs. Her hair was tangled and flat on one side from sleeping hard against him all night, but her skin was blanched.

“Hey,” she got out. Creak in her voice. “You’re standing.”

“Just fine, Kate,” he promised. Now, anyway. He’d been doing a lot of thinking in the dark hours while she’d been sleeping and he’d been healing, the last of the elixir going through him. Thinking about her, about what he was doing to her, how far he was pushing even though he hadn’t known that was what he’d been doing.

Pushing and pushing. Taking her to the edge and abandoning her there. 

“Where... is Colin?”

“In his room.” He frowned at the way she hesitated, shaking. Holding herself stiffly. “Kate, you okay-”

“Um, he’s close though? I mean... in case.”

He sighed. “Close enough,” he admitted. And he was; Colin had pointed a finger at the sleeping Kate and had said, I’m watching her.

She came slowly towards the kitchen now and stopped before she reached the counter. Feet away from it. Clutching her elbows.

James turned around and showed her his bottle. There was a plea in his silence that even Castle felt.

The boy learned fast; he was pushing out to the whole room, a subtle tug on both Castle and Kate as well. She had to be feeling it.

Kate watched him for half a heartbeat, immobile, as if she were stuck behind glass, unable. 

“Kate,” he said roughly, unwilling to let her close herself off to the boys. Not now.

“Mama.”

Her head turned, her eyes closing.

“Kate, don’t you fucking dare take yourself from them. They do not understand. You will only break his heart.”

Her shoulders hunched. He knew his words had struck, he could feel it. The bloom of blood from a direct hit. She was shaking.

“Mama,” James mewled. He was leaning for her, bottle held up, his plea unwavering, but clearly hopeless in it. He was used to do without.

“God damn it, Kate.”

She flinched, but she stepped to the counter and took the bottle from James. Another shudder went through, but she opened an arm in silent invitation. James scrambled across the counter, half crawling, half walking, and clung to her torso. The bottle forgotten.

Since he was still on the counter, Kate wasn’t picking the boy up, but James cuddled her, his legs wrapped around Kate’s waist. Preventing her from escaping.

Kate sucked in a ragged breath. She touched James’s elbow, as if it was all she’d allow herself. Her eyes were closed, face strangely blank.

The blank of that place.

“Kate,” he whispered, but he didn’t even hear his own voice. Please.

And slowly, her arm came around James, her cheek pressed to the top of the boy’s head.

Castle let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and he cupped the back of Wyatt’s head, combed his fingers through his son’s hair. He swallowed hard around the grief in his throat and glanced down at the boy. Wyatt met his eyes in something that looked knowing, all too knowing, and Castle kissed his cheek.

“James has her. Don’t worry.” But he was. He was worried. He was terrified that he’d never get Kate back after this.

Wyatt climbed into his arms with the bottle in one hand, and Castle let him, carried him around the counter to where Kate stood.

She gasped and shied, but she couldn’t go anywhere with James wrapped around her. She needed the counter to support the boy, and she was unwilling to hold him close. She flinched when Castle settled at her side.

“Mama, Daddy,” Wyatt babbled, wriggling in Castle’s arm. Grinning at them, at his brother, patting James’s back. 

Castle cupped the back of his head, kissed his cheek for it. He looked pleased for the kiss, turned to Kate.

“Mommy?” An eager hand lifted to her.

A moment’s hesitation. And then Kate caught his hand - only lightly, barely, a brush of her thumb in a circle in his palm - but it must have meant something to Wyatt. It must have been a familiar routine, because he beamed back at her like she’d hung the moon for him.

Castle touched the small of her back, unable to help himself, wanting to be part of it somehow. She shifted on her feet, leaning into him briefly.

So very briefly.

He soaked it up.

And then she said, “I was - thinking.” Her voice was thick, broken.

It broke him too. But at least she was speaking to him. “Yeah?”

“The hidden room? under the boys’ bedroom.”

He stilled. He sensed a disturbance, something not right, but he couldn’t scent what. “Did you find it?” 

“No,” she said shortly. “Haven’t looked. Better that way. I need to stay there.”

“Stay there.” What?

She dropped her eyes, a kind of terror snaked across her face. “I need to be contained. That way-”

“No.”

She closed her mouth, studied the granite. “I need to be locked-”

“Fuck no.”

Her shoulders drew up. “You’ll have to restrain me. At night. So that I-”

“Never. Going. To happen.”

She growled and flashed him a look, with teeth. “I’m going to h-hurt someone. You need to restrain me. At least at night when I can’t seem to-”

“Shut up, Beckett. Sleeping with me will be restraint enough.”

She started to cry. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

Castle froze. “What?” he croaked. 

“Mama,” James mewled into her neck, gripping her harder.

“I can’t be anywhere near you,” she choked out. Tears streaked her cheeks. “I’m going to do something bad-”

“Mommy,” the boy was calling, mouth turning down.

Castle gave up keeping a respectful distance and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, dragged her in against him. “Enough,” he husked. “Enough of this. Holding yourself away from us just hurts us more, Kate. Hurts all of us.”

She was stiff in his embrace, but he didn’t let go. He knew he wasn’t going to convince her of anything. He knew it. But he wasn’t going to let her do this to herself, to them, to the boys.

“I’m barely hanging on as it is,” she got out, still resisting him. Too weak to really pull away. He hoped anyway. “I’m barely... I wish you’d left me when I asked. I wish you had just-”

“No,” he growled. He felt the hopelessness rising up in him. “No, never. I want you. I want you. I want-”

“Mommy, Mommy-”

“Don’t do this to us, Kate,” he cried out. He was losing it. It was the damn elixir. He couldn’t keep himself together. “Don’t leave us. I can’t do this without you.”

She was sobbing into his chest when Colin came in through the entry. His face was like thunder, but when he saw Kate crying and the boys squirming, he stopped in the middle of the kitchen, sighed.

“Help me, brother,” Castle called to him.

“Fucking hell,” Colin muttered. But he came forward and took Wyatt from Castle’s arms, grabbed for James as well. James didn’t want to go, and he gripped Kate’s shirt, fisting it hard enough to make Kate stumble into Castle.

He caught her and she stiffened again, all of her hard lines and fear-filled muscle, but Colin finally wrestled James away. Castle wrapped both arms around Kate as Colin pulled the boys away, dropping them on the couch. Kate was shaking as she cried, gulping breaths that caught in her throat and made her hiccup.

“I know,” Castle murmured. “I know it’s bad. I know it seems hopeless. But you will make it. You’re going to make it. I love you, and I will do everything in my power to make that happen.”

She seemed to collapse into him, and he had to work to hold her up. His strength was back, his balance, everything, but the force of her grief was powerful, the weight of it infinite, and he wasn’t sure - for the first time since he’d met her - that he could stand up under all of that.

But he was damn well going to try.

\-----

She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sit still. Castle had the boys outside and it felt like the best choice right now.

Stay away. Just keep as much to herself as she could.

She didn’t know what would trigger her. What might cause her to white out again. Overload. Like when she shut down, but worse. Deadlier. Fatal.

She paced the living room as Colin watched her from the couch, wary. He should be. He had every right to be. Castle was the one who made no sense, hanging onto her, trying to keep himself near her, hugging and touching her like she was normal, like she wasn’t damaged.

Like there wasn’t something very bad wrong with her.

“Would you stop?” Colin muttered. “You’re wearing a hole in my head with all your pacing.”

She halted, realized she’d made a wide track before the kitchen counter. She was supposed to be using the sketch art software to make compositions of the doctors she remembered seeing in the facility. She was, instead, freaking out about freaking out.

She had to stop. She really couldn’t do this. It not only affected Colin, but it got to her kid. Her son. She had to stop.

“How about we talk?” Colin said quickly. “You’re spiraling. The copper can only do so much. So talk to me, Beckett.”

“A-about what?” she croaked.

“Anything. About--that kid. You’re thinking about him. Tell me what you think. I can learn you like I learned Castle.”

“Would it help to learn me?” she said quickly. If he could feel her more disastrous thoughts, her violence. If he could feel the damage in her head breaking out before it damaged anyone else.

“It would help, yeah. Course. I’d know patterns. Thoughts are patterns, you know. Like on a record--you ever seen a record-”

“I’ve seen a record,” she gritted out. “It’s only been three years. Not my whole life.”

Colin shrugged elaborately. His lips were twitching. 

Was he teasing her? Seriously? She could stab him before he finished laughing, and he was going to poke at her? 

“Thoughts are patterns, like grooves in a record make certain sounds and spin around and around. That’s what goes on in our heads. Constant patterns. No one ever has original thoughts-”

“You can read thoughts?”

“No,” he said, rubbing his nose. “I get impressions. Sensations. They used to feel like my own. I know the difference now. James might not know the difference. Which is why it’s good you got him out. Give him a chance to learn.”

She shivered and clutched her elbows. “My thought-patterns. You want those so you can figure out when I’m going to break.”

“That’d be nice.”

She nodded. “It would. Better than being afraid all the time.”

“You’re afraid of breaking?”

She shot him a bitter look, nostrils flaring. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“Darling, I always am. No fear in it any more.”

“But when I break, I hurt people. Badly.”

“I’ve learned to break away from people,” Colin told her. His eyes were intent on hers, verdant with import. “You’re going to have to learn how to do that.”

“I didn’t know it was coming,” she choked out. “How am I supposed to hide until I can ride it out?”

“That’s up to you to figure out.” Colin shrugged again. “Keep talking, Beckett, I might figure you out enough to give Castle fair warning when it comes.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” she whispered. Her throat was tight. “I don’t think anything can help me.”

“So you’re just gonna--what? Quit? Curl up in a ball and die?”

She shivered. “I wish it was that easy. I wish I could-” She jerked forward, pacing again, and she knew she was trying to outrun her own thoughts. 

“You got a will to live, Beckett, that is freaky strong. Never felt someone crush her own self that way before.”

She glanced back at him, sitting idly on the couch like he hadn’t a care, like they weren’t talking about how she wished she could die. 

It was a relief. He didn’t care. He’d be fine if she did it, if she managed it, and if she didn’t, it was only more work for him. So-

“Naw, I’m not looking to push you off your cliff,” he said quietly. “I just know something about self-sabotage, darling, and you always pull back before you can quite commit.”

She closed her eyes and took a breath, wishing what he said wasn’t true.

But it was. She couldn’t quite commit.

It would be better for everyone if she could step into the shower stall and slit her wrists, clear up to her elbow, watch the work of her heart pumping out her blood and down the drain. It would mean the boys were safe from her, physically and mentally.

It would mean she’d never get the chance to destroy the one good man left on the earth who loved her.

If she loved him, she’d do it.

But not even Castle could quite make her commit.

“What am I going to do?” she rasped, shaking again.

Colin didn’t answer for a long time, and she knew it was hopeless. There wasn’t an answer. There was only this.

“You’re going back to work,” Colin said finally. “Get back to the computer and finish the sketches. All of them. And then you’re riding out with us when we start rounding up these motherfuckers.”

Kate pressed the heel of her hand against her sternum and took a breath.

Her hand shook.

“Okay,” she got out. “All right. Or you could shoot me.”

“I wish it were that easy,” Colin sighed. “Castle would never forgive me. He’s in love with you.”

\-----  
Castle came in the French doors with an eye towards the garden where the boys were roaming. Kate was sitting hunched over the coffee table with the laptop before her, chewing on her bottom lip. Colin was at the counter, watching her.

Guarding her, Castle thought unkindly. Trapped in the house with the guard dog.

“Kate, come outside. Leave that for now.”

She stiffened; apparently she hadn’t heard him come in. Her shoulders went up to her ears; her eyes darted from him to Colin to the laptop.

“Please?” he asked, not even caring that his brother heard him beg.

“I think it’s best that I... stay away,” she said finally.

“No.”

She closed her eyes as if to shut him out and Castle came on inside, squatted down before the coffee table. He touched her hand, rested it there over hers. “Kate, the boys are outside, playing in the garden. They’re having so much fun. I don’t want you to miss out. I don’t want them to miss out on their mom, either.”

Her eyes flared open. “Please, don’t make me.”

He froze and removed his hand, struggled against the instinctive urge to apologize. Don’t make me.

She pulled back against the base of the couch, her hands carefully folded in her lap. An effort at composure.

Colin made a gesture from the bar and Castle glanced briefly to him. Go for it.

Castle narrowed his eyes at Kate.

No more of this. If she could fucking ask him to be locked up again, like Black had done to her, then Castle could force her outside, truly his father’s son.

“You’re coming with me. Enough work for now. There are two boys out there who keep asking for their mommy, and I can’t blame them.”

“God, don’t-”

He already had his hands wrapped around her upper arms, and he hauled her to her feet. She went limp, and he knew this was routine for her--she did it so automatically, reflexively, an ingrained response. 

“Beckett. Stand up and walk. I’ve had enough.”

She glanced over her shoulder to Colin, as if seeking permission. What the fuck?

His brother studied her thoughtfully, calculation on his face. As if he were passing judgment. As if he knew at all what was going on inside this girl’s head. He couldn’t possibly. The copper in the walls prevented him from getting that kind of information.

But at a brief nod of dismissal from Colin, Kate stood up straighter.

Castle caught his brother’s eye as he turned Kate for the door, and Colin winked.

She had no idea. Kate had no idea. She thought, somehow, that Colin could feel her out, sense those fragile places.

Holy fuck. He owed Colin. Big time. Fuck, big time. Whatever his brother had done, it was working. Holy shit. It was working. She was heading outside with him.

“Mommy!” Wyatt said joyfully, running around a concrete planter and throwing himself against her legs. She held herself stiffly, but she bent down over him in an automatic reflex, hugging him against her knees. “Mommy, Mommy-”

“I hear you, baby,” she murmured, dropping down to embrace him. 

James came more slowly, hesitating on the fringes. James had been the quiet one this morning, laughing when Castle teased it out of him, but solemn as he approached the day. The copper lining the whole house dampened Colin’s abilities, and of course they were assuming it did the same to James. But the kid wasn’t stupid.

Neither of them were. If James felt something wasn’t right, or sensed a disturbance--or hell, just took one look at her face--then Wyatt was transmitted that information. The two boys were closer than mere brothers; they were twins with special abilities, a degree of perfection in their elixir-augmented bodies that not even Castle could predict.

James came up at Kate’s side, wormed his way into her lap with Wyatt. Now all three of them were in a pile on the concrete patio just outside the door, Kate stiff and awkward but beginning to collapse over them.

Like she just couldn’t hold herself away any longer. Like touching them communicated something vital to her as well.

Castle squatted down beside them, lightly touched her back. Intending only to lead them to the grass where at least it would be more comfortable. But the moment he touched her, the sense of wholeness, of rightness, fell over him so strongly that a light graze of his fingers wasn’t enough.

His palm flattened out against her shoulder, but he couldn’t help himself. He skimmed to her nape and cupped the back of her head, leaned in and softly kissed the corner of her eye, unable to stop.

Such relief. It coursed through them all. Relief at having each other back, finally. Relief at touching, being touched. He kissed her again, the sharp angle of her cheekbone, breathing a sigh against her skin.

She was shaking. He wondered if she’d managed to eat anything, wondered if his brother had been looking out for her, wondered if she would, at all, let him back inside.

She was so afraid of herself. 

He knew it all, felt it, outside the walls of his home, in direct contact with her skin, the boys acting like lightning rods for every sensation. 

“Mama,” James said quietly, his thin arms winding around her neck, bumping against Castle. “Mama, you.”

And she laughed. It was quick, hollow even in its brevity, but it was a laugh.

“Is that the difference?” she murmured, dropping her head to nudge her cheek against James’s. “Mama, you.” She turned to Wyatt and knocked her chin against him. “And Mama, me?”

Castle chuckled, a strangled noise that came out nonetheless. He sank down beside them and grabbed her, dragged her into his lap because he wanted her there. Touching him. Made it easier, better, if they were touching.

Kate was still ragged edges and stiff, but clung to the boys and she endured his manhandling of her. He had one arm around the boys to keep them in his lap with her, and his other around her shoulders, trying to keep her.

“Castle,” she sighed. But her nose turned into his neck. He felt the wet of sudden tears.

“I love you,” he told her. Sweetheart, love, honey. All of it, terms for how much he loved her, terms which meant nothing at all next to a simple and honest declaration. He wouldn’t hide it any longer, wouldn’t keep it under wraps.

“You shouldn’t,” she said, voice shaky.

“But I do. I choose to love you. It’s not helpless; it’s not Cupid. I love you, and I will love you more tomorrow, and again the next day. I want you.”

“It might kill you.”

“It won’t.”

\-----

She fell asleep leaning against a tree, woke only when she began pitching to one side. She cried out, caught herself, bruising her spine, hardly daring to breathe.

“You okay?”

“Fell asleep,” she croaked, turning her head to look at him. Castle had come down through the glade to the cluster of thin saplings where she had installed herself. He had Wyatt with him.

He nodded. “I saw. I went back for the pedialyte. Might help.”

Great. She pressed her lips together, but she lifted her hand for the bottle. She hadn’t heard him leave, sneaking off while she struggled to keep her eyes open. “Where’s James?” she asked, throat closing up.

Had she lost him? They had all been sitting in the shade, cooling off after a game of chase (Castle chasing; the boys running, giggling; Kate barely holding herself together just watching them). 

“He’s up at the house.” He lowered Wyatt to the forest floor, the boy’s feet bare. Wyatt curled his toes and went rigid, stiffening and holding his arms out to be picked up. “No, try it out, kid. You need to get used to it.”

Desensitizing him. “Colin has James?”

“Yeah. Changing his diaper. He offered.”

She frowned, pulling her knees up to her chest. “He offered.”

“Well, he knew I was going to ask, more likely.”

She settled her cheek on top of her knee and closed her eyes. She felt brittle. She hadn’t fallen asleep so much as passed out; she had spent the night in terror, waking and dreaming. She was still trapped. “Why were you going to ask?”

“Because you’re making him sad, Kate.”

She buried her face in her knees.

“And I thought we should talk. Be therapeutic, you know? You said yes to getting shrinked, and since I haven’t got someone for you right now, I was hoping you would talk to me.”

She nodded into her drawn up legs. He’d left James up at the house so they could talk out here, away from the kid who felt too much. 

Wyatt grunted and she lifted her head, caught sight of him stepping foot to foot, back and forth, shifting his weight. He didn’t like the feel of bare dirt and rock, stubby grass and tree root.

She held out a hand to him. “Come here.”

Wyatt whined and held her gaze, desperate for her, trying to make up his mind over whether or not it was worth the sensations against his feet.

“You can do it,” she told him quietly. “If you want it bad enough, you can-”

Wyatt launched himself at her, something between a dead run and a leap, and she had to drop her knees and catch him, the rocket of his body propelled into her lap.

“Oh, hey, look at you, Wyatt. You made it.” She kissed his smiling, pink cheeks, kissed his upturned, pleased mouth. “So proud of you.”

Castle settled across from them, leaning against his own tree. She had almost forgotten he was standing there. She glanced back down to her son, stroked the hair off his forehead, the thin wisps of dirty blonde. Straw. 

Sun-streaked brown. Like Castle’s hair. “I don’t know how to talk. What to talk about. How do I know that talking won’t make it worse? Push on the pieces of me until I break.”

“You can do it,” Castle said softly. “If you want it bad enough, Kate.”

Wyatt wriggled in her arms and began to stand on her thighs, pulling himself up. She caged his waist with her hands to keep him steady, drawing something from him that he gave freely to her.

Confidence. He trusted her because she had never failed him. Even being taken away from him, him from her, had not shaken his faith in her. And the two boys had repaid her love with their own, failing to thrive when Black had tried to wean them completely from her presence.

He had been forced to give them back, and they had been the winners. They had been in control. They had been powerful, because they could demand each other through sheer force of will.

Wyatt and James had gotten her back. So she had gotten them out.

“What is it you want, Kate? Badly enough you’ll do the work, you’ll struggle for it, you’ll fight, you’ll open your mouth and talk to me?”

“This,” she croaked, tilting her forehead into Wyatt’s, skin to skin. One of his hands released its grip on her shirt and came up to her ear, held on, a giggle under his breath. He Eskimo kissed her, a brush of noses, and giggled again.

“You can do it,” Castle said again. “If you want it-”

“I want it.” She lifted her forehead away from Wyatt’s, slid her eyes to Castle. “But I’m going to get you killed.”

“I won’t let you.”

“Or them.”

“I sure as fuck won’t let you hurt them.”

Ice pierced her. The glittering and deadly intent in his eyes. He wouldn’t. He would not let her get close enough to hurt them. 

She believed that. She saw it.

That was--something. That was a place to start.

There was no fucking way he was going to let her hurt his sons. Just as Colin wasn’t going to let her get near Castle to do him damage; he’d damage her first.

Those two truths were slender but necessary fences around her. Bars to a cage she was attempting to construct around her damaged psyche.

Not yet enough, but better than the absolute and wild nothing she’d had twelve hours ago, giving over a scalpel blade like she was amputating her own hand.

Trapped animals did that in the wild. Gnawed off their own limbs to be free.

“Talk to me, Kate. James is up at the house, far enough away, and with the copper in the walls--you won’t hurt him.”

“Take Wyatt,” she said, pushing a little with her hands. But she wasn’t supposed to lift him, and Castle did nothing to help. “Castle.”

“You keep him. You need the feedback.”

“I...” She was shaking. Her hands trembled against Wyatt’s hips. She pushed her spine to the tree and its thin core of strength pushed back. “What am I supposed to say? Where does this start?”

“Tell me... about a day in the facility. You woke up. And?”

She shivered, the breeze licking ice along her skin and sending a watery current through her guts. Wyatt was shifting his foot over her thigh where he stood, rolling her quad back and forth over her bone. It was going to bruise. He seemed to like to tease the edge of instability and then find his balance again.

“Kate. Pick a day. Any of them. Tell me what happened.”

“I wake up. On my own now,” she got out, shut her eyes against the cool yellow-green light filtering in through the trees. “The lights are never off, so it never exactly feels like sleep. Just--skimming the surface, falling under, finding up again.”

Castle cleared his throat. “You woke on your own, no alarm. In time for what?”

“Pumping. Zero hour.” She took a deep breath and felt her breasts against her shirt, the brush of her body against Wyatt’s. “It’s bad in the morning. Everything aches. I wish he would go ahead and wake me every few hours to pump breast milk because then at least it wouldn’t ache like this. At first it’s--” She pressed the heel of her hand into her sternum, rubbed hard to distract herself from the phantom ache of her breasts. “It’s a relief. And then the pumping goes on. I don’t have enough. He’s going to suck me dry anyway.”

Castle made a noise and broke her reverie. She lifted her eyes to him, saw the bunch and flex of muscle in his jaw. The tic of a nerve under his left eye. 

“A shower this time. Five minutes, wakes me up-”

“Cold,” he murmured.

She nodded. Shifted on her ass against the tree, discomfort in her hip bones. “I was taking a shower. In your... the water was hot, it felt--indulgent. I closed my eyes and breathed in steam and then it--happened. My milk let down. The heat, I guess, the good feeling, and it was--I didn’t know it could do that, I guess they’re supposed to, I’d leak on the side he wasn’t nursing but I-”

She had to stop.

“Kate?”

She clutched Wyatt and he squawked at her. His little fist pulled in her hair as he tried to squirm out of her grip.

“Mommy,” he complained. His bare foot was caught in her shirt; he was trying only to climb her ribs like a ladder. 

She hadn’t hurt him.

“You’re stuck,” she rasped. Had to close her eyes to take a breath. And then she’d taken her moment and she could untangle his toes from the cotton and he beamed at her and got a knee on her shoulder and was climbing her like a monkey.

“Whoa, hey. Wyatt. Your mom’s not a tree, kiddo. Get down.”

Kate gripped the back of his pants, the edge of his diaper, hanging on to him, her neck cricked, her head angled forward, and he climbed down her back and to the ground.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, throwing up both hands. So proud of himself.

“Hey, good job, you did it all by yourself,” Castle told him. “Trying to be like your brother, aren’t you? Sibling rivalry, healthy competition, all fine and good. But Wyatt, we love you for who you are. You don’t have to be James.”

Kate cast him a stunned look. 

Castle shrugged. “I know he doesn’t understand the words. But he might get the meaning. Feel the meaning. Just in case. I don’t want be the kind of father mine was. I’m trying to be really clear on that.”

She sucked in a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Wyatt crawled over her knee and onto her lap again, practicing his balance beam act once more on her thigh.

“Kate, in the shower last night?”

She caught a little hand to keep Wyatt from teetering. He grunted at her and worked his hand free, trying to go it alone.

“Kate, please. It helps if we know. Don’t you think? You were the one who started talking about it. You know you need to.”

She circled her fingers around Wyatt’s wrist, but he made an unhappy sound and squirmed to get free--which only made him off-balance and pitched him backwards.

She had to catch him in her arms, a twinge in her womb as her muscles strained to pull him back against her chest. Wyatt gasped like he’d nearly fallen from a great height, and he burrowed his face against her chest.

“Kate, don’t do this alone. Talk to me, love.”

love.

He hadn’t since last night, since the shower. She hadn’t realized how missing it had been, the soft and tender way he called for her attention. Like one of the boys, wanting her.

“My milk let down in the shower,” she husked. “It sprayed everywhere. I thought it was done, it was so little but it seemed like I was doing everything I could, but the heat in the shower and then it just... went everywhere. Milk shower. I didn’t know it would do that, I didn’t--I ruined it, had to get out of there-”  
Castle made a noise.

She glanced up at him and he hid his face, hands in fists, mouth twisting near his wrists. Another grunt, and then a laugh burst out of him and he clapped both hands over his mouth, staring at her, horrified.

She stared back. Even Wyatt stared at him.

And then the boy let go of her and clapped his hands over his mouth and mimicked Castle, giggling behind his fingers.

“Oh, God,” Castle groaned.

She took an unsteady breath.

“I’m so sorry,” he said in a rush. His lips twisted, a smirk fast wiped away. “Fuck. It’s not funny. It’s not funny. I know. I’m sorry. I got a mental image of--you said milk shower and I lost it.”

Wyatt giggled and hammed it up in her lap, both hands still clapped over his mouth. 

She gaped like a fish, speechless.

“It’s not funny, I’m not laughing at you. I swear. Oh, God. I swear. I just--got this picture in my head--a jet of milk, laser beam of-”

“It’s not a stream,” she hissed. “It doesn’t come out in one little jet, you--you--you boy. You’re so juvenile. Nipples are filled with little perforations, as you ought to know. You’ve sucked on them.”

He stopped laughing. Shut up immediately. Only now the look he gave her was hot and very dangerous.

He got to his knees.

She clutched Wyatt and scrambled back, hit the tree hard enough to make her wince.

And it stayed Castle. He sobered, dropped back down to his heels, watched her like he was wary once more.

She tried to release her grip on the boy and managed only to relax her fists; he was still plastered against her torso, but he seemed happy with that. Humming against her ear, baby hands at her neck.

Castle’s lips twitched. “So you were going off like fireworks in my shower, and I missed it?”

Kate burst into laughter. 

Shocked the hell out of herself, but there it was.

Fireworks. Her boobs exploded and sprayed his whole shower and she freaked and did the same, everything caught in the fallout.

When her laughter turned hysterical and the tears coursed down her face, Castle gently took Wyatt from her and dragged her against his side, rocking her back and forth, his lips catching the brine of her manic grief.

She wrapped her arms around her body and tried to shore herself up again.

\-----

She leaned against him as she talked, and he counted it a miracle. Not just a victory, but a fucking miracle that she would be this close, trust this much. Trust him, trust herself.

“And then?” he said quietly. Wyatt was playing with rocks and sticks, dragging them into piles and then carefully making new piles. 

Kate’s temple rested on his shoulder. “And then, lunch. Sludge.” She grunted, a noise caught in her throat, but he heard it as amusement, hoped anyway. “Hm. Sometimes sticks. I don’t know but it tasted like bark and-”

“For your teeth,” he sighed. “We had those at first, when we were kids. Felt like a fucking dog. Colin was the one who got us out of eating those shitty things.”

“What’d Colin do?” she murmured. Her whole body was slumped against him. 

“Pitched a fit. He was six. He probably felt all of our combined disgust, couldn’t control it. He smashed about a hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment.” Castle chuckled. “Colin could usually get his way doing damage. He learned early.”

“Guess so,” she said. The words came slowly, with pauses. He thought she was tired; he hoped she might sleep a little more. Exhaustion was a sure-fire way to push her over the edge.

“So. Lunch was sludge and the doggy bones.”

She snorted, shifting against him. Her sound or movement caught Wyatt’s attention and he glanced up, gave them a furtive smile, went back to his piles of pebbles. Moving them. Fine motor skills.

“Mostly. I mean, that sounds worse than it is, but I remember girls in high school going on fad diets that were just awful. Anyway, after that, there was the ubiquitous blood test, a forced nap-”

“They drugged you every day?”

“Not every day,” she hedged, her shoulder shrugging. “Once a week. You said pick a day and this is the one I remember.”

“All right, I got it. So this day, blood test, nap-”

“For tests. Probably something related to--to one of the pregnancies, I guess. Timeline fits.” She sighed with her whole body, but one of her knees shifted over his thigh, closer now than she’d been since yesterday.

“Probably,” he answered. “An ultrasound or check-up. Yeah?”

She nodded. “I wonder if I’d have known... well, I didn’t know. Until the last one. If they were performing check-ups, they’d have to examine me, and I didn’t feel any different.”

She sounded bitter. He cupped the back of her head and brushed his lips against her hair. “How could you have felt it? You’d been drugged, more than that, you had the elixir given to you daily. Everything they were doing to offset the elixir walked such a fucking fine line. I can’t imagine how you knew about the last one, Kate. How in the world did you figure it out?”

She turned her head so that her nose pressed against his shoulder, her eyes closed. “I felt them. I... this thing, whatever it is.” She gestured between them, and then swept her hand out to encompass Wyatt, and farther, towards the house where Colin and James were.

She sensed them. The... embryos. Because they were his, because they would have lived, viable, like James and Wyatt, she had known they were there. He was... oddly grateful. Something of his had made a difference for her, had instigated or fueled her escape plan. Two little things, not yet anything really, and they’d been vital to helping their mother escape.

It made him sad. He couldn’t help seeing Wyatt’s face before him.

But enough grief for now. They’d had enough. He wasn’t going to say; she probably had already thought of it herself.

He stroked his fingers through her hair, trying not to tug on the tangles. She’d never gotten her shower. “Tell me about the rest of your day,” he murmured. “This one day you remember.”

“I always woke in the recovery room. It only felt like I’d fallen asleep in one place and woken in another. Kinda used to it. Sometimes my whole body ached, but I’d get dinner served to me and realize it was because I’d been lying there so long.”

He brought the ends of her hair to her cheek and painted her skin, circling her lips. “And this time?”

“Yeah, pretty bad. Lost more than a couple hours. Had to be late. But the reason I remember it so well... I was restrained.” She smiled. Against his shoulder, her cheek stretching, the ends of her hair catching the corner of her mouth where he’d frozen in disbelief.

Beautiful smile.

For being restrained?

“Restrained,” he echoed quietly.

“They usually peeled the velcro off one hand so I could do the rest myself. If they were gonna leave me alone in there. Meant I’d just have to stay. But sometimes I was still restrained, which meant I was going somewhere else.”

“I see. So you were heading out.”

“Yup. Three guys came in. One to watch me like a hawk, two to push. They wheeled me down the hall, but we didn’t go back to my room. Went to another room entirely. Never seen it before that day.”

“Where was it?”

Kate lifted her fingers and wriggled them at Wyatt. The boy giggled and stood up, came running forward to fall into her lap. He opened his hand and lifted up a pebble to her, which she took, knocking her cheek against his in the way she had.

“It was their room,” she hummed. “Wasn’t it, baby?” She rolled the rock in her fingers, looped one of her arms around Wyatt’s little body. “I remember everything about that day, because they got me back. Smart boys. Aren’t you? You and James. Stubborn boys.”

The light in her face was overwhelming. The joy of that moment, how little the rest of it mattered when she’d been taken in to the boys’ room.

“Wheeled in on that bed, how’d you-”

“One of them ripped the velcro, and I did it myself. But it was made clear that I’d lose my privileges if I didn’t behave.”

“So you behaved.”

She combed her fingers through Wyatt’s hair, brushing it off his forehead. “Of course. I behaved, they behaved, and that started it. Every night, I was walked down by a guard to their room and I held them, nursed them. They were so weak at first. Right, baby? You couldn’t lift your arms, or kick, you were so thin, so weak, but when I held you, yeah, sweetheart, how you mewled for me, letting me know.”

He didn’t dare move and break the moment, didn’t breathe. She leaned in and kissed Wyatt, cupping his face in her hands. 

“Mommy,” he squealed. “Mommy, me. Me. Me.”

“Yes, you, love. What a good boy you are. You take it easy on me, don’t you? You and James both. Don’t deserve you-”

“I think you deserve each other,” Castle interrupted. “You guys worked hard to have each other. Did some pretty drastic things. So don’t go thinking you’re not good enough, Kate.”

She took a slow breath and kissed Wyatt’s forehead, and then she turned and looked at him. 

She didn’t kiss him though. She was close, closer than she’d been since last night, but she had carefully kept herself away from him all this time. Even talking to him with her cheek on his shoulder, she’d been holding herself back.

She was afraid of what she’d do to him, and he knew that, but had to start somewhere. Build up her confidence in herself, her trust.

He lifted his hand from her shoulder and touched the tips of his fingers to the side of her face, brushing lightly.

He wanted to kiss her, but he wouldn’t do that. No more forcing himself on her. While she was confused, and hurting, and so filled with grief. No more of that.

Kate dropped her gaze, but he saw her eyes skirt his mouth, as if drawn.

It still wasn’t invitation.

And now she was shaking. She pressed a hand to Wyatt’s back and turned her head, as if to escape Castle, but his fingers were still cradling her skull. When she had turned it made his fingers skim her lips, and he could have sworn she kissed him.

Maybe it was wishful thinking.

Wyatt squirmed in her grip and took his pebble back, carried it to a new pile where he began rebuilding it, one by one. Kate dropped her chin, drew her knees up again.

“Good day,” he murmured. 

She nodded. “Good day. What an understatement, Castle.” She shook her head and gave a kind of laugh. “A wonderful day. I had them back, after weeks and weeks... It was a reminder, you know? That even on the bleakest day, there was a possibility for joy.”

\-----


	30. Chapter 30

Kate shifted against the tree trunk and scraped a hand through her hair, tangling somehow with Castle’s fingers. She hadn’t realized he still had his arm around her.

“You cold?” he murmured.

She nodded. “Sun’s gone.”

“Not quite, just the angle here. Come on, we’ll head back towards the house. Warmer in the garden. I know you’re getting antsy.”

“Feels weird not to have James with us,” she admitted.

“And you stopped talking,” he told her. He was shifting against the tree and she sat forward, giving him room to get up. When he stood, he reached down and helped her up.

She only flinched a little. He released her hand and turned his back to her to scoop up the boy. She swayed on her feet, a little numb in places from sitting hunched against him, and Castle waited on her to get her bearings.

“You good?”

She nodded. He hiked Wyatt up a little higher and held out a hand to her.

It took her a moment, and the strange suffering on his face (there and gone, really, but she’d seen it), and then she reached out and took his hand. His smile was equal parts relief and happiness, and his fingers twined with hers and tugged her forward.

She began walking, not eager to get back and test the bounds of James’s ability to pick up on her moods, but missing him despite herself.

Best day of her life, being led to those boys. Better than the day she’d given birth to them, because her love for them had been so much more, so all-encompassing, by the time they’d been taken from her.

She didn’t think she could do it again. Be without them. Be left behind.

“Come on, Kate. You’re falling behind.”

She hustled forward, catching up to walk at his side. The woods were thin here, close to the bend of the river, and as the leaves rustled overhead, more and more of the light began to slip through. Patches of brilliance.

Wyatt lifted a hand as if to reach for the light, his fingers moving, his eyes helplessly on the sky. He babbled to himself, to them, as if he had something to say about the blue above him, the shiver and shift of leaves. 

She reached out and skimmed lightly over his back. He turned to her with a grin, sharing his joy.

She didn’t want to hurt him; she never wanted to hurt him. But she saw how she’d do that if she couldn’t keep herself together, if she couldn’t break this hold the trauma had over her. Just as that day, being taken to their room where they laid in their little isolettes, weak and puny from their own form of protest, she had been convinced of her power in their lives. And theirs in hers (how broken she’d been, everything worthless, ash, without them, taken from them. Had she done that? Transmitted her overpowering grief to those boys even then?)

For good or ill, she meant something to them. She was their mother. She meant everything to them. She couldn’t deny that. 

But this man was their father. Rick Castle. Some kind of special agent with the CIA. Super hero. He had the same augmented genetics, the same issues; he even had a brother with abilities. He knew what to do for them, even if he hadn’t known, at first, what babies needed. 

He was learning.

The boys were learning.

She just had to keep it together long enough to see it through. 

\-----

“Your girl did half the sketches for us,” Colin said, nodding his head over the table towards Kate. “Before you dragged her out to the woods.” 

She was stiff in her chair, but she was at least pushing the food around her plate. Pancakes again. Some fruit. He thought that was better than nothing. Infinitely better than spaghetti or something that might make her stomach revolt once more. She needed a quiet night. He was bound and determined to give it to her.

“Good. We’ll start on those while Kate does the rest, right?”

Kate glanced up. Brief nod, awkward. Maybe she had her mind on other things, too.

“Daddy?”

Colin jumped, Castle’s heart did the same, and he glanced down the table to the boy who had called for him.

“Hey, James,” he husked.

“He’s never called you that,” Kate whispered. Biting her bottom lip, hope suffusing her face. “Has he?”

“Not before, no,” he murmured. He reached out and tugged lightly on James’s ear. “Hey, kiddo. You want more pancakes?”

James gave a shy smile, turning his head to look at Castle from the side of his face.

“Is that a yes?” Castle grinned. “All right. Coming right up.” He stood, brushing the top of James’s head as he passed behind him.

“I left a stack in the microwave to keep them warm. Ish,” Colin said.

“Smart idea.” Castle went around the counter and opened the microwave, lightly tested the top of the stack. “Pretty warm. Enough for James. Hey, James, you want a big one?”

“Daddy.”

“Guess that’s an answer,” he grinned, picking up one with his fingers and bringing it back with him.

“A daddy-sized pancake,” Kate murmured. She had a look on her face he couldn’t recognize, but it wasn’t the anxiety that had been crawling all over her the last few hours.

He dropped the pancake on James’s plate, leaned over him with knife and fork to cut it into small pieces. He felt the boy’s head brushing his chest, could even smell the scent of the soap they’d used to wash the kids down, the faint tang of blueberries from the pancakes.

When he had finished cutting it up, James put out a thumb and finger and took painstaking effort to snag a square.

“Hey, good job, my man,” Castle murmured, brushing back the kid’s hair and dropping a kiss to his forehead. James rocked back with the force of Castle’s move, grinned up at him with pancake in his fingers. 

“You guys have been working on that,” Kate said. “Two finger grip.”

“Pincer grip,” he admitted. “A little bit, yeah.”

“I did too, while he was up here with me,” Colin put in. Castle looked at him in surprise and Colin shrugged. “What else am I supposed to do with a baby? I mean, training is all I know, man.”

“Training is all any of us knows,” Kate murmured.

Colin glanced at her, a dark look passing over his face. “That’s for damn sure.”

Kate’s cheeks flushed. Castle growled at his brother, cuffed the back of his head as he moved around the table to his place.

Colin grunted and rubbed his skull. “What?” he muttered. “Were we supposed to not talk about it? How she stabbed you in the kidney with that training?”

Kate made a noise and Castle gripped the back of Colin’s neck, shaking him like a dog. “Shut the hell up, Colin.”

“No, he’s right,” Kate choked out. “He’s right. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. That is the dumbest idea right now. At least Colin is being smart. Not trusting me. Not-”

“Shut up, Kate,” he snarled, his guts churning over. 

Her mouth snapped shut.

He sank down to his seat and glanced to the boys, who were still eating their pancakes, though James had a wary eye on the table. Castle rubbed both hands over his face and sat back.

“Don’t tell her to shut up,” Colin said quietly. “She’s right. I don’t trust her. She’s a land mine, Castle. She could go off in our faces.”

“A bomb,” she murmured.

“No.” Castle shook his head, clenched his hands into fists on the table. “I don’t believe that. We all--fuck, look at us. We all have fucking issues. We’re all trying to work through them. Colin, you of all people-”

“Yes, me of all people. But I don’t fucking stab you because of my issues. You, Castle. The one person who doesn’t deserve it. The only one to have my back.”

He dragged in a breath, saw Kate’s face out of the corner of his eye.

Her heart was breaking. Oh, God. Colin was-

“You’re the only one on her side and she stabs you for it.”

Kate’s shoulders hunched. Eyes were shiny.

“If she does that to the one person who fucking cares what happens to her, then what the hell is she going to do-”

“Shut the fuck up, Colin,” Castle yelled. “You’re ruining it. Everything I’m trying to fucking have here.” He shoved back from the table and stood, and it was such a stupid fucking move, like he wanted to leave and stalk out now. 

She had her hands in her face. James was very still, not eating. Wyatt was watching him, surprised.

He was furious.

He was angry enough to do something he’d regret, so he pushed himself away, stalking around the table and towards the living room, the long hall down to his bedroom.

He slammed a fist into the stone and felt the satisfying crunch as he connected, but of course nothing was broken. Just some split skin and the jar of stone on bone.

He paced the edges of the room, trying to get himself under control again, wondering what the hell he could possibly say or do to fix what had just been done in there. What his fucking brother had done to her, saying that shit.

On his third turn around the room, Kate came in through the doorway.

He jerked to a stop only feet from her, and she gripped the edge of the doorframe, her face pale but her eyes fathomless.

“Kate-”

“He’s right,” she said. Her throat worked. “He’s right about me. It’s not smart to trust me right now. Maybe not ever. I don’t know how to control-”

He growled and reached in for her, catching her head in his hands and diving with his mouth down to hers. She froze, stiffening under his assault, but he sealed his lips to hers and stroked his tongue inside, knocking at her teeth before tangling with the taste of her.

She moaned, her knees giving way, but she clutched his shirt and hung on to him, and she kissed him like her life depended on it.

He kissed her, slanting to feel the push of her nose against his, to make the crooked give of his lips meet hers. She whined in her throat and came up on her toes, still fisting his shirt, and he wrapped his arms around her and brought her even closer.

She breathed harshly through her nose and her teeth clashed against his, her body surging into his. Her thigh dragged over his hip, her body rocked, something like a whine in her throat. He broke to bite her jaw, drag his open mouth down her neck, suck at the pale skin of her throat.

She was frantic against him, tugging him harder, hips shifting. He palmed her ass and kneaded the firm flesh, the tautness of her muscle. She moaned and snaked an arm around his neck, dragging his mouth to hers again.

Wet, hot, desperate. She rubbed her tongue at the roof of his mouth, wrestled his own, sucked on his bottom lip. She was shaking in his arms, trembling with whatever pent-up recklessness she hadn’t let herself give way to today.

He gripped her neck without thinking; she jerked. He loosened his hold and instead twined her hair around his fist, around and around until he had the knot of it at her nape, and he devoured her kiss.

She was whimpering, her hand fumbling at his pants, popping the button. Her mouth smeared a kiss against his lips and back to his ear. “Let me, can I, let me please-”

“I love you,” he husked, kissing her again, finding her mouth. Stroking his tongue against hers, drinking from her lips. He found her hand and lightly circled her wrist. “I love you, Kate. I’m not being blind or stupid or sticking my head in the sand when it comes to you. I love you enough to keep you from hurting me, and me from hurting you too.” He pushed in against the webbing of her thumb, squeezed with his pincer grip until she cried out.

Her face flushed, her eyes came up to scan his face. “Castle-”

“I’m not letting either of us hurt each other,” he got out. “Until this is reciprocal, sweetheart, I won’t use you just to get some wonderful feeling.”

Kate’s fingers curled, her face went slack.

“When you’re cleared, and off pelvic rest, when I can make you feel just as wonderful as I do when you touch me...” Castle sighed, wishing she could feel what it was to be held by her, his cock in her hand, that heat and comfort. She’d understand then. “Until then, love, it’s not fair for me to take and take.”

She blinked. “But I want you to take.”

“Too much has been taken from you already.” He swallowed and shook his head. “And I’ve been forced on you enough as it is.” And even as he said, he couldn’t help leaning in and lightly touching her lips with his.

She was unresponsive at first. It made his kiss a little more insistent and her mouth parted, her tongue slowly stroking his, as if he was something unknown.

Her fingers gripped his ear; he grunted and opened his eyes.

“Forced on me,” she murmured.

“My DNA, my father-”

“You didn’t do it. Did you?”

“I-” He touched her lips with a finger, tracing the quirk of her mouth. How she looked at him in this moment; he wanted to memorize it. “No. I didn’t do it. But it was me anyway. I’m not going to keep on in a pattern of behavior that has only hurt you, caused all of this grief-”

“The boys aren’t grief.” Her fingers pinched his ear. “They’re what kept me alive.”

He nodded. “I do know that. They’re not grief to me either. But I love you, Kate, and I won’t be part of the horror.”

Her fingers brushed over his groin where his cock was, most definitely, still happy to see her. She glanced up at him. “This isn’t horror, Castle.”

He loosened his hand in her hair, released it in long waves. “No? Well, last night says maybe it’s not exactly helping.”

She withdrew her hand.

“I still want to kiss you,” he murmured. “And... touch you all those places you’ll let me. I want you to know me like I know you, and feel your hands along my body. Can we still do that?”

“You’re the one coming up with rules.”

“I feel like someone ought to have some boundaries here,” he muttered. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

“So you tell me to stop?”

“So I ask that we do some mutual orgasm denial. You and me, Kate, partners. I won’t come until you can.”

She frowned fiercely at him and he cupped her face in his hand, his thumb tracing a line under her bottom lip. Her mouth opened as if she couldn’t help herself, and that was all the proof he needed.

He absolutely had to stop taking advantage of her. Just because he felt all that overwhelming love from her when she was touching him didn’t mean that it was okay to use her for it. For more of that hit.

“I’m supposed to see my OB in two weeks,” she said then. “To check me. See if I’m healing. I guess... I should find someone and do that.”

“We can find someone,” he promised. “In two weeks?”

“Three week check-up,” she clarified. “So, just about. The social worker said - um, she said there might be changes to the instructions if things are... yeah.” She ducked her head and then looked up again, setting her jaw.

She wanted him. She wanted him.

He leaned in and kissed her very softly. “We’ll find someone for you, love. Ah, Kate.” His heart was so full. He didn’t even need for her to be touching him like that and he felt it anyway, the strength of her desire for him, the warm current of her love.

Love in the only way she had left to her. Love from a woman who had been conditioned to insecurity and terror, trained to crush her responses down to dust.

She stepped back from him, as if she knew how intense his thoughts were.

“You should finish dinner. And--I should too. All of us. The boys and... me. Colin. Just, um, be with us?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. He wanted to take her to bed and slowly unveil all of her beautiful body to him, put his mouth to all of those places she kept hiding. He wanted to have her to himself.

“Thank you,” she whispered, turning now. She clasped his hand and their fingers laced; she looked at him over her shoulder as she led him from the room. “It’s safer if someone’s watching. Safer for you all.”

\-----

The boys had discovered television. 

Kate wasn’t sure when, or how, but James was the one to climb the built in bookshelves for the remote and Wyatt was the one to work the buttons perfectly to turn it on. Since it was satellite, there was a moment where both boys looked defeated, their plans for naught. And then a cartoon came on, booming through the room, and Wyatt applauded.

Kate let out a breath, realized watching them work their plan had made her anxious.

“Well, you guys have it all figured out,” Colin said, sinking into the easy chair by the French doors. “Guess all it takes is once. Castle, better watch out for them.”

Castle chuckled, reaching down for the remote. He thumbed down the volume and pulled up the guide. “I don’t think this is the kind of programming you want them watching, Kate.”

She sank down into the corner of the couch, pulling her feet up under her. “I don’t know. What is it?”

Castle glanced back at her. “Annoying.”

She felt a smile flicker at the corner of her mouth, gestured for him to go ahead. He went through the guide looking for something else to watch, but James came to her as if she’d called for him, running to her knees. 

Kate brushed a hand through his dark hair, and he dropped his cheek to her thigh, a fist gripping her shorts. He tried to pull up onto the couch, and she nudged him down a little, unwilling to have him in the line of fire.

“Watch tv,” she murmured to him. “Look, Wyatt is watching. Daddy found something.”

Wyatt was sitting on Castle’s feet, gazing up at the television with absorption. The Simpsons. Castle looked pretty proud of himself for finding something that was palatable, though Kate wasn’t sure it really was.

James grunted at her.

She couldn’t bring herself to push him off of her, but he was growing frustrated by her repeated attempts to thwart him. He clenched a fist in the couch cushion and one in the material of her shorts, but he turned his head.

“Daddy!”

Castle glanced back, eased his feet out from under Wyatt. “What’s up, Jay? What do you need?” He came to squat down before James, hands out on the boy’s hips. 

James turned and tried to pull himself up, and Castle caught on fast, lifting him into Kate’s lap. 

She caught the boy, sighing, and Castle leaned in and kissed her forehead. “I know you can’t lift him, but I’ll always do it, Kate. Just ask.”

She lowered her gaze to James and he ducked her look, burying his face in her shoulder and squirming on her lap.

Two against one.

“Mommy.”

Okay, three against one. “Yeah, Wyatt.”

“Here, Wy, let me lift you up with Mommy.”

Great. She accepted the second boy on her lap and the two of them fought each other, playfully, wrestling for space. Castle chuckled and sank down beside her, and now all three of her guys were close.

Too close.

Colin cleared his throat and she glanced at him, a fast look, but he only gave her an ironic salute. She didn’t know what that meant.

“All right, come here, kid. Take it easy on your mama.” Castle tried to pull Wyatt off of her, but the boy mewled rather desperately and gripped her shirt, shying away from him.

“Okay, okay,” she husked, leaning in to kiss his temple. He eased his grip on her, but he pressed his face into her neck. She cupped the back of his head and gave Castle a helpless look.

He shrugged. He was as clueless as she was. Wyatt wasn’t the one who supposedly knew things, but maybe he took his cue from James, picking up on some kind of twin language. Maybe James was just off enough that it made his brother sad.

Or maybe they’d been in a facility their whole lives and walking barefoot across the dirt and having the sun on their faces all day was enough to discomfort them. 

“You tired?” she said softly, stroking Wyatt’s hair. James was leaning heavily into her side, looked like he was watching television. But the adults‘ eyes were on the boys, not the cartoon.

“Mama,” Wyatt sighed, slumping against her. 

“Yeah, I’m here,” she promised. She had to be better than this, keep from transmitting her issues to them. Even if James was the one who sensed things, it was clear that both boys were tuned in to her, and she to them. Couldn’t be trapped together for as long as they’d been and not.

They were going to turn to her when they felt ill at ease, unsafe. For now, she was the one they wanted.

For now.

\-----

She fell silent in the middle of her story, as she had been doing all evening. Wandering off into a quiet that felt potent, unbreakable. 

Castle drew his arm tighter around Kate and dipped his cheek to the top of her head. She was still rigid beside him, but he hoped it would just be a matter of time. Persistence. Perseverance. He had to keep proving to her that she could be trusted, that her damage didn’t make her unloveable.

That trauma couldn’t prevent them from being together.

Nothing could keep him from her.

“Mama,” James insisted. He’d taken to calling her name every so often, as if to draw Kate’s attention back to him.

(As if to keep her here, as if to calling her back from the edge, keep her from getting lost inside her own head.)

He was probably giving the boys too much credit, but all of three of the adults had watched the twins work together to get the television on. Not a word spoken between the two boys, just meaningful looks and a division of labor that played to their strengths. Castle wasn’t going to underestimate these two.

If James felt like he needed Kate’s attention, then Castle was going to aid him in that endeavor. Keep her talking, keep her with him.

“And your dad?” he said, prompting her to finish her story.

Kate sighed, but she lifted her hand from James’s leg and idly combed through the curls on James’s nape. “He was a big baseball fan. Watched the whole game on tv, read the box scores. There’s an art to reading a box score, and he tried to explain it to me when I was a kid, but I have to admit, I never figured it out.”

Lost to her now. That’s what he heard in her voice. How much of her family, her traditions, those things that grounded a person--all lost with her parents’ deaths. 

“I have no idea how to read a box score,” he admitted. He glanced over at his brother but Colin was watching television; he’d snagged the remote and it was some kind of action movie. The boys were apparently so impressed with the movement and explosions that they hadn’t protested the lack of cartoons.

Kate shrugged under his arm, tried to detached herself from him.

He dragged his hand up her arm to cup the back of her neck, keeping her with him. “But I can learn. Baseball. Sure, why not? Boys will need something to do, keep them active. We played soccer as kids. The only sport we were allowed...”

Castle winced. There was a reason why comparing their stories just wound down to silence. Neither of them had trauma-free experiences to share. His always held the specter of his father’s cruelty and coldness, while hers were overshadowed by her parents’ absence.

“Mommy,” James whined. His fingers pushed against Castle’s, trying to dig into her hair. Castle loosened his grip and Kate’s shoulders released (how had he missed that defensive signal?). James began twirling her hair, laying his cheek on her shoulder where Castle had been displaced.

He kept his arm on the back of the couch instead, but he didn’t give up touching her. He combed his fingers through the ends of her hair, away from James, and Kate let out an involuntary noise.

Like purring. Something deep and content that she snatched back immediately, eyes flaring open, sitting up straighter.

She wasn’t going to let herself relax.

Castle sighed and palmed her chin, angled her mouth so he could kiss her. Very softly, demanding nothing. “It’s going to be okay, love. I promise.”

She shivered.

“I know you can’t trust yourself, but you can trust me. I’m more than capable. And I’m forewarned. Can’t you lean against me, Kate? I miss you.”

Her lips twisted and she turned her head. He had learned what it meant, how she tried to keep herself together, that instant of desperation before tears came. He hadn’t meant to make her cry, so he cupped the side of her face and stroked his thumb along her jaw. Tried to soothe.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I just... I’ve gotten used to the way you feel against me and it’ll take some time to not--to not want it so badly.”

She shuddered, and then suddenly she was trying to untangle herself from bodies--himself, the boys, working her arms out from between them, struggling to shift James and Wyatt, a strange and urgent sound in her throat.

He sat back, stunned, as she dumped both boys across his thighs and ran from the living room.

He stared after her, his lap filled with wriggling, unhappy boys.

Colin snorted at him. “Good job, Castle. You’re hitting home runs today.”

He jerked his head to his brother. “What did I do wrong?”

“What didn’t you do wrong? She’s a mess, big brother, confused as shit, and it’s mostly because of you.”

Because of him?

He thought he’d been pretty damn clear what he wanted from her.

\-----

When Castle came into the bedroom after her, she couldn’t exactly say she was surprised. She just wished she had found a place to hide.

“Kate?”

Her shoulders hunched, but she swiped at the tears down her cheeks and shrank back into the stone of the staircase. There was just no damn place to be alone.

“Um. Did I make you cry?”

She grunted and pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, trying to take a deep enough breath to clear her lungs. Clear her head.

Just wouldn’t happen. She was permanently tainted. No breath was deep enough, no day bright enough to bring her out of three years of being a hostage.

A hand touched her head and she jumped, but Castle knelt on the step below hers, palmed her thighs with a squeeze. “Kate, I’m at a loss here. I think I’m doing the right thing, but this is uncharted territory for me.”

She scraped a hand through her hair. “No kidding.” Like she knew any better how to keep herself from falling apart.

Castle sighed. “I’ve never loved someone before.”

Kate jerked her head up, curled her hands into fists at her chest. He gave her a weak smile and rubbed his hands down the outside of her thighs.

“I’m kinda tangled up over what’s the right thing here. Never had to worry about that before,” he said, lips pulled back in a grimace. “I just did my job. It was pretty black and white, but not any more.”

“What?” she croaked. Her spine ached from being hunched over. “What are you-”

“I don’t know what’s right, Kate. God, I love you and yet I feel like I keep hurting you. Badly.”

Goose bumps raced over her skin, her traitorous body prickling with awareness even as her nipples puckered.

He crowded closer, thumbs rubbing at the tops of her thighs. “What’d I say, love? To make you cry. I know it was me.”

“It’s not you,” she croaked.

“It’s my fault you had to leave. All cozy on the couch with the boys, and I said something stupid and you left.”

“Not your fault,” she said, shaking her head. Shaking. She squeezed her fists tighter and pressed her arms in closer. If she could just keep track of herself at all times, if she knew where she was, what she was doing-

“What’d I say, Kate? Just... tell me how you heard it, because I can’t-”

“No, you were right,” she muttered. Breathing was difficult, like a knife in her lungs. “You were right. It’ll go away after a while. It’ll get easier, and then it’ll be gone, and it won’t matter-”

“Wait. What will be gone? What’s going away?”

She shivered and pressed both hands into her sternum. Both hands. Keep her hands to herself. 

“Kate,” he said fiercely. “What’s easier?”

“I won’t touch you,” she got out. She had to close her eyes, keep from drowning in him. “I won’t touch you, I promise. I’ll just... it’ll go away, right? It’s just because I’ve been a-alone so long, and no one--it’ll stop. It’ll stop and I won’t hurt you-”

“Oh, God,” he groaned. Suddenly she was yanked into his lap, her knees knocking his ribs, her fists gripping his shirt to keep from falling. “Oh, God, Kate, that’s not what I meant. That’s not--don’t you dare stop touching me. I might die if you stopped.”

She sobbed, breaking, unable to hold it back any longer. He couldn’t say shit like that, he might die, he couldn’t say-

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered against her ear. Rocking her. She couldn’t stop crying. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “That’s not at all what I meant. I just don’t want to be bad for you. I feel like I’m bad for you, Kate, everything I do. Every move I make.”

She sucked in a ragged breath but more tears came in their wake, a fresh sob as she tried to hide her eyes in her hands.

“I just miss you,” he whispered.

She cried harder, but she untangled an arm from between them and snaked it around his torso, pressing herself closer.

He gave a fast breath out, his grip became tighter, and he kissed her cheek, sucking lightly at the salt on her face. She shivered and then went still, not squirming, barely daring to breathe. They were too close. He was kissing her eyelids and tracing a line down to her ear.

“You’re different, Kate,” he murmured. “I’ve never felt like this before, never felt before. You’re more than anything I’ve ever had, and I’m trying to - I don’t know - I guess I’m trying to prove to you that it’s different.”

“I won’t touch you any more,” she husked. But her fingers gripped his shirt; she was lying. She couldn’t be trusted. She couldn’t even keep from-

“Please don’t stop,” he murmured. “I don’t want that. I just don’t want you hurt. I thought I was hurting you.”

“I hurt you,” she said. “I was the one who hurt you. I can’t be trusted-”

“No, honey, that’s not at all true. You didn’t hurt me. I’m just fine. Kinda dense, as you know. Besides, love, you’re the one crying.”

“I stabbed you,” she sobbed. Hysterical laughter bubbled up, and she clung to his shirt at the back and pressed her eyes into the material over his heart. He stroked her back and combed his fingers through her hair, arms tighter now.

“I’ve pushed you too fast,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I feel like it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been such a damn lecher. So - so abusive, always pushing myself off on you-”

“No, I-” Kate sucked in a hard breath. “I like it. Not abusing me. I never said no to you.” She wouldn’t say no, she couldn’t say no-

“I’m not sure ‘not saying no’ is enough,” Castle murmured at her temple. “Baby, I’m not sure passiveness is-”

“Passive?” she snarled, shoving against him. She caught her breath, withdrew her fists, sat up straighter. “I wasn’t passive in any of this. I touched you. I’m the one-”

“Okay, okay,” he said quickly. “You’re right. I’m not being - I guess I’m overstating it a little-”

“Overstating. You’re being pretty damn melodramatic,” she said, trying to worm away from him. “And yet the one thing you should take seriously, you don’t. I stabbed you. I am dangerous-”

“Now who’s being melodramatic?”

“It’s not melodrama, Castle. It’s what actually happened. You didn’t fucking rape me. Even if I didn’t outright say ‘yes, please, get hard for me’ then I was definitely making it happen, wasn’t I?”

Castle grunted. “I... okay. Well, yeah, you-”

“You didn’t rape me.”

He scraped a hand down his face, and she saw his cheeks were flaming. “Okay. No. I didn’t rape you. I know that.”

“But you’re right to be wary of me,” she went on. “You can’t be that vulnerable to me, Castle. You can’t - let yourself go like that. Not around me. I might-”

“That’s just not true.”

She wrapped her arms tighter around her torso, but he still held on to her thighs draped over his knees. Keeping her trapped with him.

“It’s not true, Kate,” he said again. “Physically vulnerable? I’m not worried about that. It’s the way we’re emotionally vulnerable to each other. That’s where we’re doing damage, I think. That’s what doesn’t seem to heal.”

She shivered and dropped her eyes, tucking in closer to herself, trying not to feel the way he brushed his thumbs over her knees.

“I came into the bathroom last night hoping to - wanting you. Thinking I could touch you, and it would make you feel better about all the shit that’s been done to you. As if any kind of physical touch could erase three years of abuse.”

She stiffened.

“But when I came through the door-”

“I attacked you.”

He sighed. “I shouldn’t have been so damn lecherous. Thinking only about my cock. I mean, really. I’m a grown ass man. I don’t have to be-”

“So now you’re punishing me for it.”

Castle jerked upright, staring at her. His mouth dropped open, and then closed, and she blushed, wishing she hadn’t blurted that out. 

But something in her always fought back. She never fucking learned.

“Punishing you?” he croaked. “I’m - punishing me.”

She shivered and gripped her elbows. “No. You’re just punishing me. As you should be, Castle. I’m no good for you.”

\-----

“I don’t believe that at all,” he said, cupping her face in his hands. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

She blinked, staring at him, all of her words gone now. Well, that could be good. He had more to say, and he hoped she was listening.

“Maybe I value these feelings more than you do,” he murmured, stroking her cheekbones with his thumbs. “I’ve never had anyone - anyone care so much about me that they put my needs above theirs. Never had someone like you, love. Never known it was possible.”

Her lips parted, her eyes scanning his, like she couldn’t quite believe him.

“I’d rather love you, have you, and run the risk of some kind of physical pain than not love you.” He released her, dropping his hands to her shoulders, squeezing slightly. He didn’t want to trap her, didn’t want her to think she was trapped by him. “Physical stuff I can handle. The elixir makes me pretty much invulnerable-”

“Not to a knife.”

“Well, once it’s done, it’s hard to kill me. As you can see. Not a normal man, Kate.”

She averted her eyes, her jaw working. She didn’t seem to believe that he could handle whatever she threw at him. 

Castle dragged his hands down her arms and then leaned back, lifted his shirt and bared his side to her. “Look at it. Not even a scar.”

Kate’s fingers loosened. Only a little, but it was there. A small unfurling, like she wanted to believe in him, like she might touch him.

“I’m the best person to be around you right now,” he assured her. “I can take anything you dish out. Bring it on.”

Kate stuttered on a laugh, lifted her head to him. He grinned, delighted to have gotten that little involuntary amusement out of her. He leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, a short peck of his smile to her twist of disapproval.

“You’re going to get better,” he promised. “It’s just going to take some time. And however long it takes, I’m here to be your strength, whatever you need. Carry the boys for you, protect you from yourself, lay down the law.”

Her lips twitched. “Lay down the law.”

“Make you do what’s good for you.”

“Because you know what’s good for me.”

He winced. “Well. Obviously I’m, uh, making it up as I go along. And I fumbled pretty badly here-”

“That was a pretty major fumble.”

He grunted and tilted his head. She was - he thought - teasing him a little. “How can I make it up to you?” He lightly touched his fingers to her knee, skimmed over the bare brush of her skin. 

But she didn’t tease him back. She didn’t seem able to keep it together for long enough to fight back.

“Hey,” he murmured. “I’ve learned my lesson. No more withholding ourselves. I want you pretty badly, and you want me, and I hope that makes us both feel good. If we can have that, then maybe we can work on the rest of it, right?”

“What’s the rest of it?” she muttered, staring down at her hands.

“The rest of it is the kids, this mission we have to eradicate the project, erase everyone who knew about it.” He took a breath. “Ourselves. Our family.”

Kate’s head jerked up, her eyes flashing dark and liquid. Still full of a kind of misery he couldn’t seem to touch, but at least the shock of his words had brought a flare of hope.

“I know nothing will replace your mom and dad. I know that you miss them, will always miss them.” He took her hands in his, clasping them together. “But you have me. And we have those boys. You have them; they fought for you, and you fought for them.”

Kate caught her bottom lip with her teeth, such yearning on her face.

He was reminded, vividly, of the moment at the rest stop, when she had begged him to leave her. Same bleak yearning, same hopeless sense of wanting things she couldn’t have.

He wouldn’t stand for it. He wasn’t going to keep doing this to her, making her crazy because he didn’t know how to love someone like a normal person.

“I was thinking,” he murmured. Her fingers curled in his clasp. “You and I need to talk. About what’s happened to you, about what’s happened to me. We need to keep talking, say what matters.”

She shivered. Her shoulders hunched near her ears but she nodded slowly. “Yeah. Talk.”

“Looks like that scares the shit out of you, but I think we’re just going to keep hurting each other if we don’t. I’m going to hurt you. So we’re going to have to talk.”

She swallowed and nodded again. “Shrink each other.” She gave him a faint smile.

“Yeah, sweetheart. Just like that.”

Kate let out a breath, some of her anxiety melting away. And he had no idea why. Just that something was different now.

“If you’ll do that with me, then I think we can be sure of each other. Trust each other. I can trust you with my physical body, and you can trust me with your emotions. What do you say, love?”

Kate made a noise and tilted into him, her forehead crashing into his neck. He wrapped his arms around her, stroking her back, touched a kiss to her temple.

“Are you with me?” he murmured.

She nodded. “With you.”

Castle felt himself relax, surprised when he did, but when he turned to carry her off the stairs, he saw Colin haunting the doorway. Watching over him.

He shooed his brother away, cradling Kate in his lap. “You okay to watch tv with the boys for a little while?” he murmured.

“Yeah,” she husked.

Colin still hovered. Castle made a more violent gesture and his brother held up both hands, backed away.

He let out a breath of relief and moved to scoop up Kate, but she roused and pushed away, untangling her legs from his lap. She stood on her own, and he followed, and they both came down the stone steps.

He took her hand at the bed, and she glanced once over the sheets before she turned to look at him. Her fingers tightened around his and then slipped through, lacing. She was taking slow, deep breaths like she was trying to control herself.

“You’re going to make it,” he told her.

She nodded.

“Come on. Boys want to see you, hang out with you before their bedtime.”

“And bath,” she mumbled, lifting her eyes to him. “They need a bath.”

“Of course, yes. Bath.” He’d forgotten. He stepped forward, tugging on her hand. “You coming?”

She followed, the inside of her arm kissing his as she came in close. Felt good to have her at his back like this, felt good to think they were on the same side again.

They went down the long hall together and came towards the living room. Both boys had gotten off the couch during their absence, and now James came running to them, crashing into Kate’s legs.

Castle leaned over and lifted James into his arms, leaning in to let the boy wrap his arms around his mother’s neck.

Kate turned into James, and consequentially, Castle too, embracing him as she went for James. 

He’d take it.

“Mama,” James mumbled into her hair.

“Mama’s doing better,” Castle promised him. “It was Daddy’s fault, but Mama’s better now.”

\-----

The couch was full with all four of them. Since James and Wyatt had both wanted to be in her lap, Castle had pulled her to lie down. With the stupid movie running on the television, both boys seemed hypnotized, one tangled in her legs, the other behind her back and wedged down into the couch.

“You okay?” Castle said.

She shifted restlessly on his thigh, her head at an awkward angle. “No. Your leg is too thick, putting a crick in my neck.”

Colin barked a laugh but Castle didn’t seem so amused. He grabbed a throw pillow from the corner and nudged on her shoulder. “Lift up, baby. This might help.”

She had boys all over her, but she elbowed herself upright and Castle managed to get the pillow under her. When she laid back down, the extra support made a more natural angle for her head and she sighed. His hand came to her shoulder, an extra weight, but she curled in on herself, closing her eyes.

James was against her back, but he laid his head down at her hip, his little body draped over hers. He relaxed this time, as if he’d just been waiting for her to settle, and she lifted her arm and lightly embraced him, stroking her fingers through his hair.

He hummed, his little hand digging under her shirt to flick his fingers at her skin. It tickled, and she squirmed.

“What’s he doing to you?” Castle murmured.

“Nothing,” she said immediately, tensing. And then, “Just fingers tickling my stomach.” She glanced down to the boy, smiling at him in reassurance, but James’s eyes were drifting shut.

She traced the outline of his skull against his skin, the narrow line of his cheeks, trying not to disturb him. James mumbled something under his breath and sighed, compact little thing lying over her.

Wyatt’s head popped up from down by her feet, and he wriggled against her calf. “Mama,” he babbled, chanting sounds as he squirmed.

Castle shushed him, and Kate went rigid, but he was already leaning past her and taking hold of Wyatt. She sucked in a stunned breath, her hand cupped protectively over James’s head. Castle dragged Wyatt right over her body, the boy giggling as he went along for the ride, his feet tucked up and just skimming her ear.

“Sorry,” Castle grunted. “Awkward. Wyatt, hush, little monkey, you’ll wake your brother.” Castle put Wyatt on his other thigh, and the boy jabbered something over her head that she couldn’t catch.

Castle had one arm slung low at Wyatt’s back, his other hand at the boy’s nape. Even though Wyatt had been squirming and giggling, he slumped against Castle’s chest and leaned over, laying his head against hers.

Kate sighed, touched by his touch, and she lifted her hand from James to stroke her fingers awkwardly around Wyatt’s ear. 

“He too heavy?” Castle murmured.

“Little,” she admitted.

He shifted Wyatt and took more of the boy’s weight from her, and this time Wyatt hunkered down against Castle, leaving only the pressure of the boy’s knee against the top of her head.

“Better?”

“Just fine.” She dropped her arm and curled in again, James shifting heavily with her, draped all along her lower back. Castle’s hand touched her nape, lightly, as if he didn’t want her to know he was touching.

She reached back and caught his fingers, dragged his arm over her neck and around, tucking him under her chest. 

She didn’t close her eyes. She couldn’t. But it was nice to be contained.

\-----

Everything hurt. She had a headache that made her nauseous, impossible to move without setting off flashes behind her eyes. Her ribs pulsed with the same ache. She stayed draped over Castle’s thigh, but she cleared her throat and scratched at his knee through the material of his cargo shorts.

“Kate?” His voice was quiet, as if he hoped she was asleep. 

“Can you move James?” she whispered. “Just, over into my arms. He’s pinching my ribs.”

“Yeah, yeah, course,” Castle breathed. He had to maneuver an arm around Wyatt at his chest, but he managed to get a grip on James and ease him over Kate’s side. She cradled his head on his descent, hanging on to him, but James roused and opened his eyes, whimpering at being woken.

He clung to her shirt and Kate leaned in, dusting her lips over his forehead. “Shh, hush, back to sleep, sweetheart.”

She could take a deeper breath this way, and her lungs weren’t being restricted, but that same ache was behind her eyes, making it hard to think past.

Castle stroked James’s back until the boy settled, and Kate laid her head to his thigh again, a breath of relief.

“You okay?”

“I’m alright,” she murmured, curling her arm around James. He was warm weight, a little sweaty with sleep. “In a minute... we should give them a bath.”

“Yeah, we can-”

“In a minute,” she said, shrugging her shoulder to dislodge his reach. He went still again and she traced a line down James’s back. “Just need a minute.”

“Okay,” he answered. “In a minute. Yeah. When the movie is over, that okay?”

“That’s good,” she nodded. James’s little face was nuzzled up close to her, his mouth puckered in his sleep. Rosebud lips, the very stereotypical metaphor from fairy tales and Rockwell paintings, and here was her son, trusting in his sleep.

The boy who sensed things, the one who was upset when she wasn’t right. And here he slept in her arms. So deeply asleep, slack against the couch cushion, one of his fists still closed around the ends of her hair.

She dusted her mouth against his fist, smiling to herself when he stirred, fingers opening, still asleep. His hair stuck up on the top of his head, wispy dark strands that curled ever so slightly. How different he was suddenly, how much a stranger to her.

When the boys had been laid on her chest as newborns, scrawny and pale and kind of slimy, she had inspected every last detail, their toes, the crinkle of James’s ear where it must have gotten mashed on his way out, the thin fingers Wyatt couldn’t seem to close, their rapidly bueing eyes. She had noted the curve of Wyatt’s chin and the angular set of James’s cheekbones, she had compared their faces, their bodies, their feet, and she knew.

She had always known. James and Wyatt.

At fourteen months old, how little she’d been able to do this. Inspect their every nuance and fold, catalog their differences. James’s hair had a wild set to it, the soft wave at his neck and around his ears stood up in sweaty sleep. Wyatt’s hair resolutely flopped over his forehead, and his smile had been so ready and instant this afternoon under the trees that she hadn’t been able to resist combing back those bangs.

His hair was as soft as his daddy’s. James was - all her. Thin and wiry and strong, longer legs than Wyatt, though Wyatt’s torso was longer, making them almost even height. James had a sturdier feel to him, probably from those obstacle course trainings she’d read about in his notes. But thinner for all that. Wyatt had rolls of fat at the crease of his legs, but James did not.

James needed more. He needed nourishing food, needed to nurse every night, while she had the idea that Wyatt would survive happily on pancakes and blueberries. Not James. He wasn’t quite done yet. As if he had needed a little more time with her, carried by her, and he’d been forced out too soon.

She brushed her fingers over his delicate ear and kissed him, very softly, knowing she absolutely had to keep herself together long enough to see him free of her.

When he could smile like Wyatt under the trees, when he could eat blueberries and pancakes, when he had those rolls on his little legs, then she could afford to fall apart.

Until then, she was going to have to find a way to talk to Castle. 

\-----

“Well,” he admitted, hands on his hips as he surveyed the bathroom. “I’m not sure what to do here.”

“Just put a few inches in the bathtub, I guess?” Kate said, nudging past him to inspect the tub. 

Luxury tub, with high sloping sides, slippery when wet, and no purchase at all. Plus, he’d had this idea that the more contact with the kids that Kate had, the better and more centered she seemed to be, so he wanted her in on bath time.

“I’m afraid they’ll slip and smash open their heads in that tub,” he said.

Kate blanched, turning fast away from the tub.

“Shit,” he whispered. “Sorry. That was graphic. I didn’t mean to put that in your head-”

“You’re right. You’re right. Wyatt would. He doesn’t have the muscle strength like James. He’s goofy, and he acts up, and he’d get himself hurt.”

Castle swallowed and nodded. “Yeah.”

“So what are we going to do?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know. What do you think about the bathroom sink?”

She turned her head and surveyed the trough. “It’s too shallow. I think they’d pitch over the side before either could catch them.”

“Ouch.” He rubbed his hand up the back of his head and tried to think. If-

Kate lifted her head, suddenly pushed past him and back out to the bedroom. He followed, a flicker of concern somewhere at the back of his mind, but Kate was hurrying now through the bedroom and out towards the living room.

Where Colin ought to be watching the boys.

But Castle hadn’t even made it down the hall, chasing after Kate, when he heard James from the living room. Wyatt too, maybe, whining, but James-

“No!” 

Kate picked up her pace, flying out of the hall and into the living room, only to stop short, sending Castle crashing into her back.

James had backed himself into the bookcases, crammed himself into a narrow space between a piece of art and a collection of thick, heavily-bound wildlife encyclopedias. Wyatt was circling Colin’s feet, looking upset but without knowing, distressed because his brother was. He had a fist of Colin’s pants and seemed to be pushing on the man.

James let out another cry, a distinctive, sharp, “No!”

“Colin,” Castle gasped.

His brother turned, Kate shied into the space between Colin and the bookshelves, put her body in front of James. 

“Mommy!” he sobbed.

“Colin.”

“I didn’t do anything to him,” Colin growled. He bent over and picked up Wyatt, swinging the boy into his arms. But Wyatt was upset and he leaned out for Castle, and Castle took him, pressing his son to his chest.

“Colin-”

“I fucking swear. Come on, Castle. Like I’d do something to your kids. To her kids, crazy bitch-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Castle hissed. “You think that kind of attitude doesn’t do something to my kids?”

Colin snapped his mouth shut. Fists clenched. He jerked his chin away and then turned his whole body from Castle, stalking off. 

Castle heard the front door slam, and he took a breath, cautiously approached the bookcase where Kate knelt. James was in her arms, trying to climb her like a tree, and she had her whole body bent over him, trying to soothe him without picking him up.

“James,” he said quietly, squatting down beside them. “Hey, Jay? Look at me, my man. You’re okay.”

“He’s scared,” Kate whispered.

“It’s been a scary kind of day,” Castle said softly. “And we won’t leave you alone, okay?” He reached out slowly and brushed the hair back from James’s face.

Kate sank down to the floor, wrapping her arms around James and dragging him into her lap. The boy had real tears down his cheeks, his fist in his mouth as if he was trying to get control of himself again but couldn’t quite handle it.

“The copper in the walls,” he murmured. “It’s heavier around the bedrooms, obviously, for Colin’s sake. So I can’t broadcast and he can’t receive. But it makes me wonder if it had James worried. Not being able to feel you quite so clearly.”

Kate lifted her head, her brow furrowed. “But what about when we were sitting under the trees and he was up here?”

“Well, it was the reverse, right? His ability was dampened. But just now, you were dampened. Shielded by the bedroom.”

“It’s more than that,” she murmured, brushing her lips along the top of James’s head. Back and forth. “More than that. He’s picking up on... something.”

“Colin,” he said grimly.

Kate closed her eyes.

“Ignore Colin,” he growled.

James clenched his fists in her shirt. 

“James, you too. Colin doesn’t have say over what happens in my life. In my house. With my sons. He can seethe all he likes, but he’s wrong.”

Kate lifted her eyes to him, a weary and bleak look in her gaze. “Maybe he’s right-”

But Castle didn’t get the chance to stop her. James did it for him. “No.”

Castle gaped, his eyes fixed on the fierce little James. He choked out a laugh and reached out, caught the back of James’s skull. “Yeah, baby, you got that right. Mommy’s so wrong. She’s not going anywhere.”

Wyatt squeezed his arms around Castle’s neck and he brought a hand to the boy’s back, kissing his cheek. 

“You’re not forgotten, kiddo. Love you both. Mommy loves you both. And your brother is okay now; he just got scared. It’s gong to take a little time, huh, guys? All this new stuff, having Mommy with you so much, new people. We’ll work on it.”

Kate let out a sigh and slumped against the bookcase, James cradled against her. “What are we going to do?”

Castle reached out and slid his arm between her and James, managed to get the kid over into his grip. James fussed for a second, but he settled down.

“We’re going to give them a shower. Come on, Kate. You, me, the boys. All of us together. Family time.”

\-----


	31. Chapter 31

“Naked?” she murmured, cheeks burning brightly pink as Castle stripped off his clothes.

“How else?”

She unashamedly watched him peel the shorts from his hips, the material drop to the floor in a heap. Vaguely, she saw the boys playing on the tile floor, dragging towels over their heads and giggling like insane little demons, naked as jay birds, but her eyes flicked back to Castle.

He was smooth flanks and legs like trunks, the soft brown hair dusting his belly button and down to the thickness of his cock. It wasn’t exactly soft, but he wasn’t aroused; he was just - ready.

She took a harsh breath inward and tried to steady herself, reached for the hem of her shirt to pull it over her head. Her arms got trapped by her own clumsiness, and then she felt the heat of his body against her as he reached in and freed her.

Her hair tumbled over her shoulders. His hand cupped her jaw. His eyes were entranced, entrancing; she couldn’t help leaning forward and kissing him.

He moaned.

It was soft, it was barely a sound at all, but she felt it to her soul. 

His fingers traced down her neck and skimmed the silk of her bra on his way to her hip. He loosened her shorts, fingers in the waistband of her panties, running the backs of his knuckles against her stomach.

“Love you, love you so much,” he breathed against her.

“Castle,” she gasped.

“Sorry, no, I’m not sorry, really, at all, but I’ll stop. I should stop. Naked in front of the boys. Probably shouldn’t be getting an erection.”

She choked on a laugh, more stunned than amused, her body pitching forward into his. He got her steadied again, and then he knelt down and dragged her shorts off, then her panties, skimming his hands back up to her hips.

She reached behind her to pop the clasp on her bra, her breasts inadvertently thrust towards his face. But he only got a wicked little grin splitting his lips, and he kissed her hard, and then he turned away.

She tossed the bra to the floor and Castle opened the shower door. He was right; the stall was massive, plenty of room for all four of them, and they could keep the boys herded to one side while they washed them down. Kate could sit on the bench even, and help without stretching herself too much.

She was feeling twinges all through her guts, from her abs to her womb, and she knew it could be bad. She just couldn’t quite bring herself to bear on the problem, to worry over it. So much else seemed more important.

Castle turned on the overhead rain spout, and the water seemed to cascade like light itself to the tile. Kate watched, slightly hypnotized by the fall of water, while Castle rounded up the boys.

“Alright, alright, no more hide and seek. Give me that towel, you little monkeys. Come on, sweetheart.” A tug on her hip and she startled back to herself, followed him automatically.

sweetheart

“Go ahead and sit down. We’ll do this assembly line style. I’ll soap up the boys’ bodies, pass them on to you to wash their hair. Give ‘em back to me to rinse.”

“At the same time?”

“One at a time,” he clarified, shutting the glass door after them. “Okay, guys, who’s first? James? Cause you look the most tired, baby boy.”

He called her baby too.

“Hold still for me, son, there you go.” Castle crouched in the spray, the water hitting his back and sliding down, dripping from his calves, his ankles, around his shoulders, streaking to his belly button and shadowing between his legs. 

Kate held on to Wyatt with a loose arm around his neck, but he seemed content to stomp his feet in the puddles of water on the tile. He would splash and give her a beaming, look-at-me face, and she would be obliged to kiss his nose and cheeks and make a big deal over his adventurous forays.

Castle was on one knee to bathe James, carefully blocking the worst of the spray as he held the boy under the showerhead. Soothing noises, clucks of his tongue, a word of explanation to James as he got the boy wet and then moved him out of the water.

Kate watched him lather up the baby soap, spreading it under James’s armpits, down his torso, between the little folds and creases of the boy’s skin. Under his neck, coasting his spine, a grimace as Castle washed between the boy’s legs. 

She pressed her lips together, amused by his faint unease. They were his sons, but they were strangers, someone else’s boys, and he was new to this job. Hell, so was she, and even when she’d been diapering them, there’d been a sense of am I supposed to touch this? 

Castle gave a triumphant little noise and lifted his head. “Okay, I’ll rinse this one off. And then he’s yours.”

Kate couldn’t help the smile that beamed back at him, proud of them both for figuring this out, doing it together. Teamwork. Not more than she could handle, not less than she could bear.

She released Wyatt to Castle and he nudged James forward. 

“Come here, little cub,” she murmured, holding out her arms to James. He gave a little running start and she caught him before he could slide on the tile, though of the two boys, he’d be the one to have no trouble at all, if she let him get that far.

She combed the wet strands back from his face and cupped his cheeks, made him look up at her, catching his eyes. He blinked and gripped her wrists, hanging on to her. A drop slid down his nose and she wiped it before it could curl to his eye.

“Hey, my baby wolf. How are you, love?”

Castle distracted her with some strange noise, and she glanced up at him, but he shook his head and went back to the task of wetting down Wyatt.

When she looked back at James, he was rubbing his face into her arm and whining pitifully. 

“Such a tired boy, I know. I think it’s a lot my fault. We’re gonna have to work on that, honey. You and me, figure out how to survive this without overloading you. Maybe your uncle can help. He’s not scary, I promise.”

She ducked in close and kissed nose, and she had the sudden startling and clear revelation of exactly how scary Colin could be to a fourteen month old boy who needed his unstable and life-threatening mother.

“Okay, okay,” she whispered, finger-combing his hair, unsnagging the tangles. “I get it. I understand. I’ll work on that too, sweetheart.” Keep Colin from having to use extreme force to keep them safe. She would have to be better than that, if only to keep from giving Colin ideas about what to do with her - because that couldn’t be in James’s head.

She hugged him briefly, her knees clasping his little body, and then she straightened up and started doing her job. She poured only a little dab into her palm and rubbed her hands together, lathering the baby shampoo before she even touched his head.

When the scent of lavender came over them, released like bubbles from the foaming shampoo, both she and James relaxed, an almost involuntary thing. She laughed softly at how drowsy the boy had gotten, the pitch of his body, the heavy sway, and she rubbed her thumbs in circles over his scalp, soothing him.

Her mother had always put lavender oil into her hot baths at night. 

Kate inhaled deeply, surprised at how delicate the memory was, touching lightly along her nerve endings. It wasn’t heavy, wasn’t even sad; it was as if the stroking touch of her mother’s fingers were in her hair and over her back, rubbing circles in her skin like she’d done when Kate was home sick.

A gift from a ghostly memory, bath scent at night, candles and an open window to the city below, the sound of horns and car alarms, doors slamming and voices, the usual white noise against the drip of water and the slosh of the tub, the turning of pages as her mother read case files or a novel before bed.

Kate used to lay down before the bathroom door, listening to her mother, smelling that scent of lavender, falling asleep in it when she was a little girl, and talking to her mom through the door when she was older. Sacrosanct, her mother’s baths, and rare enough that the memory was always wonderful.

Fingers closed around her wrist. “Kate? Sweetheart, you done? Wyatt’s ready for you.”

She released James to his father’s hands; Castle had to lean in and bodily pick him up, hold him carefully under the spray. His wide hand shielded James’s face from the water, preventing it from rolling in his eyes.

“Oh, he’s practically asleep,” Castle rumbled, voice pitched low but strong enough for her to hear over the shower.

She nodded, certain that was her fault - her doing, her gift - the ability to share with James that soothing and peaceful moment.

Kate glanced down to Wyatt, wet and still a little soapy in her grip, and she scratched her fingers back through his hair to look at his face. He grinned back at her, held up both hands, opening his fingers.

He had nothing in either palm but water, but maybe that’s all he was sharing. He frowned and pulled his hands in closer, studied them, then thrust them back to her.

She took one little hand and kissed his fingers, did the same to the other despite faintly tasting soap on her lips. “Let’s wash your hair, my little animal. Oh, are you happy?” 

She smiled as he shivered in pleasure, pushing his body between her knees and gripping her thighs with his hands. He slapped her skin and made the water splash, and he laughed.

“You’re a little clown. As happy as your daddy. That’s good, hush, no, you just splashed water in your eyes. That’s all.” She laughed back at him as he pouted melodramatically, and she cupped his face and kissed that pout. His grin came back instantly, like magic, and she scrubbed the top of his head, hard, to make him giggle again.

She washed his hair quickly, an eye on Castle as he cradled James against his chest. The boy looked either already asleep or fast on his way, and Castle was humming something low that reverberated against the tile.

“I’ll rinse,” she told him, crouching down with Wyatt and guiding him carefully back to the spray. She sealed her hand across his forehead as Castle had done, and nudged Wyatt’s head back. “Tilt back, sweetheart. Don’t want it running in your eyes.”

He didn’t seem to know that word, but he caught on fast to the way it would work. His shoulders hunched, obviously expecting the worst, but she managed to rinse the soap, only water running down his face when he twitched at the last moment.

She drew him out of the spray, wiping at his face with her fingers, and Castle turned the shower off quickly.

“Good boy, brave boy,” she murmured, combing back his wet hair to keep it off his face, keep it from dripping in his eyes. “Oh, look at you, so handsome, all clean.”

Wyatt beamed proudly, his chest puffing a little. He couldn’t possibly understand her words, but he definitely knew her feeling, her intent, saw her regard in her face. She kissed his cheek and stood carefully, keeping hold of his hand.

Castle had already carried James out of the stall, and she followed with Wyatt, helping him over the little lip and across the steamy tile. 

“Here, towels,” Castle whispered, tossing one her way. She caught it and knelt down to wrap it around Wyatt’s little body, rubbing him briskly. He giggled in a helpless kind of way, and she saw that he was tired too.

“Pajamas?” she murmured, lifting her eyes to Castle.

He nodded. “On the bed. Will he walk?”

At that moment, Wyatt stumbled into her and slumped against her chest, knocking her off her feet and on her ass. She caught Castle’s smirk and shook her head, cradling Wyatt. “No, guess not.”

“I’ll lay James on the bed, come back for this one.” He ducked, his knees bending, and his fingers lightly came to the top of her head before he was gone.

She slowly rubbed Wyatt’s back through the towel, and cuddled his warm, soap-scented body.

She had sons. Two sons. And their father was right here with them.

She wasn’t sure she had ever really understood that before now. 

They were in this together.

\-----

Castle leaned forward and eased James out of Kate’s arms. The poor boy had fallen asleep so many times while nursing that she had tugged on his ears to wake him, at least long enough to get some kind of nourishment in his belly.

Wyatt was squirming around behind Castle’s back, between him and the headboard, some kind of game, or maybe he liked the pressure of having Castle pushing against him. With James in his arms and Kate a warm, drowsy presence herself, Castle took a moment to absorb the family around him.

The love. The trust. 

He had been unfair with his brother; he needed to go looking for Colin.

At his back, Wyatt pressed his face into Castle’s t-shirt, chewing a wet spot into the material. Castle chuckled, carefully lowering James to the empty side of the bed, letting him sleep.

He turned and caught Wyatt, dragged the boy around his body and into Kate’s lap. “Your turn, wild thing. Stop chewing on my shirt.”

Kate hummed, a kind of acknowledgement or amusement, maybe both. She slid her arms under and around his, and she angled Wyatt’s mouth to her breast. The boy didn’t need any help, his fingers splayed across the slope of her breast and his mouth latched on eagerly. His eyes stared up at her, and Castle settled down behind, his chin to her shoulder.

Just as they had with James, there was no talking, no need for it. Kate’s hands were free to stroke the boy’s face, down around his eyes as they slowly closed, straightening the onesie both the boys wore as pajamas. James hadn’t been able to keep his eyes open, but Wyatt struggled against closing his, wanting to watch his mother, and Castle couldn’t blame him.

Kate seemed to be studying the boy’s body. Her fingers around his leg, down to his toes, thumbs pushing on each one as if to test them out. Wyatt nursed, his little mouth moving in rhythm until some touch from Kate made him falter, and grin, and shift in Castle’s arms.

“He’s not as tired as I thought,” Kate murmured.

“Or he’s fighting it pretty hard.”

“Mm, maybe so. Are you fighting it, sweetheart?”

There it was again, sweetheart. Kate was appropriating his love language, using the same terms he used when he talked to her, when his love shined through. Using what he’d given her, as if she had no language of her own for it.

He had to think she felt loved; he had to assume she used the words because she felt the same from him.

“Stop wriggling, Castle,” she whispered, lifting her head enough to knock against his cheek. 

He chuckled into her hair. “Sorry.”

“I think he’ll fall asleep when his tummy is full. Won’t you, baby? Yeah, just like that.”

Wyatt’s eyes were drooping, just as she had predicted. Kate leaned her head back against his shoulder, and Castle took the opportunity to lightly kiss her neck. Her flesh rippled and she turned into him, a brush of her mouth against his stubble, her nose rubbing his.

“Hey,” he whispered. “We did good tonight, didn’t we?”

She hummed and nodded against him and he relaxed, hoping she was as far away from last night’s trauma as they could get. Only after they’d exited the shower with the boys, and her hair had been in loose and wet curls around her neck, had he realized how stupid he was.

She’d been in the shower when she’d had that panic come over her, that flashback so strong that she’d attacked him.

But she hadn’t said anything and so he hadn’t either, and he was just hoping the edginess would give way to exhaustion. He wasn’t sure how much sleep she’d gotten yesterday, and she’d spent so much of today tense and battle-ready, flinching at every sudden move, shaking. Things would look better tomorrow after she’d had sleep; he was sure of it.

He ought to go find Colin; he had practically accused his brother of purposefully hurting James. He knew better, and so had Kate, but Castle had reacted to the tension in the room, the fear in James’s eyes, and he hadn’t been kind about it.

His brother had been right to leave, cool off, but he deserved an apology.

And with the way Colin didn’t trust Kate, Castle was surprised his brother hadn’t come back yet.

“He’s asleep,” Kate whispered. “I can’t get him to nurse any more.”

Castle dropped his chin and watched Wyatt, loose-lipped and lashes dusting his cheeks, and he eased the boy away from her skin. Kate ducked under his arm as Castle maneuvered Wyatt out of her lap, the night pressing in around them with solace and quiet. He laid Wyatt next to the sleeping James, careful to keep the mattress from shaking.

Kate slid out of the vee of his legs and laid on her side, brushing her fingers down James’s nose, doing the same to Wyatt. Like good-night kisses. 

Castle got out of bed and came around to the other side of the mattress, sank down to his knees. Kate’s eyes were heavy, but she pulled her arms in against her chest, as if she was afraid of what happened next.

Of being alone with him.

Castle touched James’s foot. “I’m gonna walk the perimeter,” he said softly. “All right if I leave them here with you until I’m done?”

Kate blinked, opened her mouth like she might protest.

He hurried on. “I need to find Colin. I think he’s somewhere on the grounds, but I owe him an apology, and I don’t want him to do something stupid just because he’s mad at me. Not with the wolves coming in so close.”

Kate closed her mouth, cast the boys an anxious look.

Castle stood quickly. “I’ll put them to bed when I get back in. I just don’t want either one of them to wake and miss you and you can’t pick them up, you know? Not like before.”

Kate gave a tentative nod, her eyes on the boys, and Castle leaned in and dusted a kiss to her shoulder. She shivered even as he moved to leave, and with a last look over his shoulder, he left them there.

He hoped that with his presence removed from the house entirely, she might fall asleep. She looked so tired, so very weary, and if he could keep himself away, give her a chance to relax with those boys already asleep, no demands, no reminders of last night, then maybe she’d be asleep when he got back.

And he really did owe his brother an apology.

\-----

After ten minutes had passed and Castle hadn’t returned, Kate slid out of bed and put some distance between herself and the boys. Just in case.

With her back to the stone wall, she slid down to the floor, hoping the rough edges would keep her awake. She scraped a hand through her wet hair and let her head dip forward, closing her eyes. Her spine met the rigid blocks of stone and crunched as she shifted her weight, but the little spikes of pain were actually comforting.

She couldn’t fall asleep. She had no idea what would happen if a nightmare came over, if flashbacks haunted her dreams. There was no doubt she had some kind of PTSD, just as Castle had hinted, and a shrink or somebody would be necessary just to get her head on straight.

Maybe some kind of anti-anxiety medication. Maybe if she-

Well, fuck. 

Fuck.

She couldn’t very well tell some psychologist what the fuck had been done to her, could she? I was captured by a hitman...

And then all the rest of it. The training, the people in that facility, the military project that Black had created-

The elixir. If she told someone about the elixir, then she exposed Castle and his brothers to scrutiny. Probably to some kind of investigation or inquest, even a Senate hearing, since Black had started this program under the auspices of the military.

Kate’s head jerked up, eyes zeroing in on her sleeping sons.

The boys. They were part of this too. What would their lives be like if she opened her mouth? 

She couldn’t go to a psychiatrist, she couldn’t talk to anyone. 

There was no one to help her. She was alone in this.

Kate pressed her the heels of her hands into her eyes and bowed her head over her knees. She couldn’t talk about this to anyone; she couldn’t start talking about all the things that had been done to her when the consequences were so far-reaching.

She was on her own. She had to do this alone, get her shit together, stop being dangerous. Talking to-

Castle, there was Castle. She was supposed to be telling him things, giving him stories about what had happened to her, what she’d been through. Working it out. Talking to him could work, right? He’d had therapy sessions as part of his training; he had told her that much. He could do it and she could - she could find some kind of safe place to do it.

She needed a safe place. She needed to find that damn room.

Kate stood abruptly, turning to face the stone wall. She ran her fingers over the mortared seams, surprised at how smooth it was, as if it had been sealed. But the rough contours of the stones themselves abraded her fingertips.

Kate moved the chair away from the stone wall, shifting it slowly - she was weaker than she expected, and the exertion made her head spin. She had to slump back against the wall for a moment, close her eyes to keep from losing her balance.

After a few breaths, she struggled up and wedged herself between the chair and the wall, feeling with her fingers. The stones were irregular and made it difficult to inspect, every ridge felt like something important or out of the norm. She went slowly, expecting door seams or some kind of button to push.

Hadn’t Castle called it a secret room? How would he have opened it? 

Kate scanned the bedroom, the boys asleep on the bed, little bodies curled into each other for comfort. Warmth. She crept forward, moving closer to the massive bed. It was as imposing and beautiful as the grand breadth of the room itself, and even now, looking at the place with calculation, she couldn’t help but be impressed.

The windows were simply gorgeous, the night that pressed in against the full length of the glass both comforting and dazzling. Stars filled the expanse, crinkled and glimmering in the dark. She hadn’t seen stars like this in years, and she couldn’t remember ever going out into the night at the facility.

It truly was a castle. Impregnable, removed, built for princes. Her boys on the bed were the little princes in their castle, and nothing could hurt them behind their father’s walls.  
A castle. A fortress strong, mighty, unable to be overcome. Even Kate felt the relief of knowing nothing could get them here, no one could scale these walls, enter this place.

Castle would want a secret room that he could access in an emergency. In case the unthinkable ever happened, and he was caught unaware in his bed, at his most vulnerable, he would want his defense at hand.

Kate leaned over the bedside table and skimmed her palm along the heavy wood.

She felt it almost immediately. Castle’s side of the bed, and the table he used the most, and there it was: an indentation that, even as she pressed it, created a disturbance in the whole room.

The boys both shifted as the walls seemed to tremble, and then the stone wall seemed to bulge and dissociate. Kate turned around and studied the wall, and soon she saw the faint disturbance in the stone. It was as difficult to make out as the steps themselves, a trick of light and angles, but once she saw it, she couldn’t unsee it.

It was so obvious.

Kate grinned and darted forward, putting her fingers to the crack in the door and opening it wider. The room was wider than she’d expected, and it stretched the full-length of the boys’ room above. She ran her fingers over the near war for a light switch, but there was nothing.

She didn’t know how it worked, but at least she had found it. Peering deeper into the room’s confines, she could make out a cot and a bank of computers, monitors, something security related. She could also see two trunks at the far side of the cot, army trunks, the kind that usually held supplies. She thought.

Hard to know.

She debated going inside, but she was afraid the room would close behind her.

Just the thought of it made her back up, hitting the chair as she scrambled away. She didn’t want the door closing on her. She didn’t want to be alone in the dark. 

Her heart was racing. Her palms damp.

She was having trouble breathing.

No.

She couldn’t do this now. Those boys - she couldn’t do this.

Kate swallowed hard and pushed her back against the stone wall, closing the door with two fingers. It wouldn’t stick, popped open again, but she had to ignore that for now.

Just stay away. Just don’t get close and she wouldn’t get stuck inside.

When Castle came back, she could have him turn on the light. He would turn on the light and it would be okay, she could sleep in the room.

She wouldn’t be able to get to any of them.

\-----

Castle was nearly to the bridge when he spotted Colin’s form in the darkness. A sliver of moon gave off just enough light that his brother’s eyes gleamed from the top of the buttress. Castle paused below, inspecting the molded stone, and then he began climbing.

When he reached Colin, his brother sighed and scooted to one side, giving Castle room. The concrete buttress was warm from the day’s heat, and it felt good out here in the darkness to have a reminder of the living, awake world.

“I lost it,” Castle said by way of explanation. “And you didn’t deserve that.”

“No kidding.”

Castle narrowed his eyes into the trees, didn’t look at his brother. “I’ve got no tools to deal with this shit, Colin. No one ever explained to me how feelings could get so damn complicated.”

“My whole fucking life hasn’t been a lesson for you?”

Castle rubbed the back of his neck and snorted, unable to help it.

Colin punched his shoulder. “You think I was just being melodramatic?”

Castle shook his head, though, perhaps, yes, he had. In some way, he’d thought Colin just couldn’t hack it. He had sympathized, but he’d had no ability for empathy. Not then. “Kate says I’m the one who’s melodramatic,” he admitted.

Colin grunted. His brother probably wasn’t yet able to think fondly of Kate, Castle figured. He couldn’t let that stand.

“You’re going to have to figure out a way to live with her, Col. She’s my - the mother of my sons.”

“And you’re fucking blind in love with her.”

“Yeah. I am.”

“She doesn’t...” Colin sighed and kicked his feet into the darkness, but he didn’t say she doesn’t love you back. He didn’t say it.

Castle was pathetically grateful for that much. She didn’t have to love him back; she didn’t. But he really hoped-

No. No, she didn’t have to love him back. He just wanted her to feel loved. Just feel it. Know it. 

“You’re a mess,” Colin muttered.

“I’m working on it.”

“She’s unstable-”

“I’m working on that too, Colin. You don’t have to keep repeating yourself. I know she’s suffering. I know that the more confidence she has in me, the more likely she is to lash out.”

“She can’t control herself. Even she’s afraid of that. You’d be wise to-”

“If I fear her, if I - for one second - make her think that it’s at all possible that she’s right, she’ll never get over this.”

“I’m not sure she’d ever get over killing you.”

Castle growled and scraped a hand down his face. “She won’t kill me.”

“You can’t-”

“I can. I am. She won’t kill me. She might have flashbacks, and she might see me as the enemy, but forewarned is forearmed. I can handle her. I’ve had thirty years of training; she’s only had three.”

Colin took in a growling breath and jostled Castle atop the buttress. Bodies pressed tightly, elbows into vulnerable places, the usual wrestling match. 

The boys did it too. A bloom of warmth in his guts reminded Castle that this was worth it, all of it, his brother’s unhappiness and the boys’ mother’s fears as well.

Worth it.

“She’s only had one,” Colin said.

One. “Yeah, you’re right.” One year of training before Black started pumping her full of elixir and hormones, getting her ready for broodmare. “Shit.”

“He can do a lot in a year,” Colin muttered, “but he can’t make her invincible.”

“I’m not invincible, but I’m damn close,” Castle promised. “And with the elixir-”

It hit him then, what last night had done, what Colin had been forced to do to save his life.

“Fuck,” he croaked. “You used the shot. Our last shot. Kate’s-”

“I’m one hundred percent certain that Kate - if I’d had the time to ask her - would agree that you needed that damn shot more than she did.”

The elixir was gone. They had nothing for her. “Fuck,” he rasped, bowing his head to his hands. “I should’ve seen it coming. God damn it. I let my fucking cock get overeager and it wiped out every last fucking thought in my head.”

Colin let out a frustrated noise. “I’ve been trying to tell you-”

“Fucking hell,” Castle groaned. “That will not happen again. I promise you, Colin. My defenses are up-”

“Against her?” Colin said bitterly. “Somehow I think that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Not against her,” he admitted. “But for her. It hurt her, wounded her damn deeply, Colin, what she did last night. I won’t forget that any time soon. That is what keeps me vigilant.”

“Her feelings.”

“And yours, too.” Hers mostly, but Colin was his brother, and he didn’t want Col to have to save his fucking life again. “I know what it feels like to come in and find your brother dying on the bathroom floor, felled by his own damn stupid addictions.”

Colin let out a strangled noise. Castle figured he’d made his point. How many times had he saved his brother’s life? In some fucking terrible situations, all made by his own brother’s hands. Castle had spent a lifetime rescuing his little brother, and not once had those instances been anything but Colin’s own fault.

Too many drugs, too many prostitutes, too many self-sabotaging behaviors. He could see those trigger points in Kate, probably a lot more clearly than either of them have him credit for. His own brother’s life had been a trial run for the shit Kate was tangled in, and if any man on this earth could partner her in this, it was Rick Castle.

“Damn, you are one fucking confident man,” Colin muttered. “What it must be like to be you.”

Castle chuckled shakily, not sure he had his brother on his side again, but it was something at least. “Confidence has been bred, trained, and beat into me, little brother. If he did anything right, it was that. I know how damn capable I am. I trust my abilities. I have faith.”

Colin let out a slow breath. “That’s the difference between us,” he said quietly. “The world has fucked me over one too many times for me to have any kind of faith. You might think of that when you look at that girl. If she kills you-”

“She won’t. And the stronger my faith in her, the deeper my love for her, the more she can’t help but feel it. We’re connected, Colin, she and I. If I waver for a second, she’d feel that too. But she won’t get that from me. She will only feel my unconditional support. And in time, that has to prevail. It will prevail. And every moment, every second, that she’s surrounded by me, she less of a threat she becomes.”

“Bloody hell,” Colin sighed. “You’re unassailable.”

“I’m Castle,” he grinned back, into the night, into the dark. “Tower of refuge, tower of strength. You said it first.”

“I was fucking with you.”

“You meant it anyway,” he answered. And he’d taken Colin’s name for him to heart. It was the only name anyone had ever given him. He had no idea what his mother had named him, though he assumed Richard. Impossible really to be sure.

“Damn it, Castle.”

“That’s me.”

“She ought to be watched, every second-”

“I am watching.”

“You know, Kate is on my side in this. She’s falling apart thinking she’s free to slaughter you in your sleep.”

“Now who’s melodramatic.”

Colin snorted. “I’m saying maybe you’d make her feel better about herself if you just fucking tied her up at night.”

“I won’t do that.”

“Put her in the panic room at least. That’s what it’s for.”

Castle grit his teeth, shoved on his brother’s shoulder.

But he couldn’t quite get it out of his head.

For Kate’s sake... should she be locked in at night?

\-----


End file.
